The Wrong Side
by Nail Strafer
Summary: Tails and Knuckles just barely escaped their prison in Robotropolis, but Sonic wasn't so lucky. Now he's roboticized and working with his enemy Metal Sonic. Team Sonic's two remaining members now search desperately for a way to save their friend...
1. Housebreaking

**Chapter 1: Housebreaking **

**September 6th, 2316 – 6:10 AM – New Earth City, South Island**

The sun just peeked out over the horizon, casting its warm rays on the capital city of Planet Freedom. Windows of tall skyscrapers glistened in the first light of the day, like gigantic mirrors. A cool breeze whistled across the city, rustling leaves in the trees planted alongside the broad avenues. Because the citizens were only just starting to wake up, nary a sound could be heard anywhere. Cars peacefully glided down roads without interruption, since rush hour hadn't started yet.

A squirrel jogger went about his daily run on the sidewalks around the city, while listening to rock music on his portable music player. Unconsciously, he began to sing along with the lyrics as he ran.

However, two blurs rushing past him suddenly cut off his singing. He flew off of his feet and crashed down to the concrete on his back. Dazed, the squirrel shook his head and glanced up to see who knocked him down. However, the two blurs were already speeding around a corner out of sight. All he could see was that one was red, and the other orange-yellow. Sighing, the squirrel heaved himself back up off the ground and resumed his jogging.

If he were moving fast enough, the squirrel would have seen that the two blurs were none other than Knuckles and Tails. They had been traveling for more than twenty-four hours now, in order to deliver an urgent message to the President. It showed. Both of them panted heavily as sweat dripped down across their bodies and soaked their fur wet. They couldn't stop though, even with how long they had been running. Something horrible happened just a day ago that concerned the entire planet, and the President desperately needed to know about it.

At long last, the bridge leading to the President's island emerged into view.

"Almost there..." Tails said, between pants.

"Finally..." Knuckles answered.

It took less than a minute for them to reach the mansion at the center of the island estate, but to them it felt like hours. The guards appeared to have noticed them approaching, because they opened up the front doors as they entered. Standing in the giant entry hall was President Henry Rudot himself, wearing nothing but blue pajamas.

"Tails? Knuckles?" he asked, worriedly. "What's going on? What on Planet Freedom are you doing here at the crack of dawn?"

"Mr. President..." Tails started. "It's horrible! We've got to get you and Sarah far away from here as soon as possible!"

"What is it?" the President asked, moving closer.

"It's Sonic. Robotnik...he's... H-he's..."

Tails couldn't complete the sentence, because it was too terrible for him to speak it out loud. To say it would be for him to admit it was true. Knuckles picked up the slack for him instead.

"Robotnik roboticized Sonic! But it's even worse than that. He took Sonic's life data and used it to program a new model of Metal Sonic."

The President just stood there, speechless. He didn't seem to know how to react to this news. It hit him like a punch in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He stood paralyzed to the spot for a few moments, before he finally found his voice.

"H-h-how could this happen? This...this is..." he pointed at Tails and Knuckles. "You and Sonic are the backbone of our planet's defenses against Robotnik. How can we ever hope to defeat him if he's got Sonic on his side now?"

"I don't know Mr. President," Knuckles said, sighing. "We'll just have to figure something out. First things first though. I'm betting that Robotnik will send those two here as soon as he can. You and Sarah need to get out of here fast, and find somewhere safe to hide. We can figure out where we'll go from there."

"Y-yes..." the President said, nodding. His knees quaked beneath him, like he was about to fall down from the fear. "I'll tell my men to make ready for our escape, and prepare the emergency bunker. If you excuse me, I'll go get my daughter from her bedroom."

"Let us do it," Tails said. "We can get to her faster. You just head for the warp hole room and we'll meet you there."

"All right," he replied, nodding again. "I trust you, but be quick. We'll leave the door open in the secret passageway to the warp room so you don't have to waste time searching for it."

The President and his personal troop of guards ran for a side door out of the hall. On the way out, one of the guards hit the general alarm. Meanwhile, Knuckles sprinted away and started bounding up the stairs towards the upper floors, where the bedrooms were. He took a quick glance over his shoulder, and saw that Tails was following.

Within a few moments, they reached the proper floor's landing. Knuckles dashed over to a tall pair of wooden doors, and twisted the golden handle. The door was locked. Sighing, he punched straight through the door lock, making a hole in the door where the knob used to be. After that, he pushed the doors open.

Beyond waited a hallway with a red carpet, and off-white walls. Expensive crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, in addition to various elaborate paintings on the walls. A few servants emerged from the doors lining the halls, checking to see what the commotion was. However, Knuckles paid no mind to any of it, as he ran past everything to get to Sarah's room with Tails following right behind.

Finally, he reached the proper door, but it was locked like the last one. Just then, Knuckles heard a glass window shattering on the other side, followed by a loud scream. Knuckles wasted no time, as he punched the door in, causing it to smash against the wall next to the doorway. Inside the room, Sarah screamed at the top of her lungs as she lay in her bed, trying to shrink back against the backboard as much as possible away from a broken window nearby. Her cat tail, visible from under the covers, had fluffed up to a huge size. Glass shards covered the floor, as the window's curtains fluttered in the breeze coming into the room.

"Aaaaah! Get away! Get awaaaaaay!" the girl shrieked, staring hard at something in front of her bed.

A robotic hedgehog hovered silently in the middle of the smashed window. The blue machine looked to be about one and a half times bigger than the original Metal Sonic, which allowed more room for a larger jet engine in its back. Several long spikes extended from the head. White streaks ran down each spike, in addition to the armor covering his arms and legs. The metallic armor sparkled in the morning light outside like it was made of diamond.

Claws extended out of both the hands as well as the feet, and each one of them looked to be at least a foot long. A black cape ruffled around behind the robot as he descended to the floor, extending out from black shoulder pads covering the upper arms. The eyes glowed an eerie red, like hot coals. Overall, the machine looked even more evil than the first Metal Sonic had been.

In an instant, Metal Sonic extended his claws and twisted his arm back, preparing to lunge at the human-cat hybrid on the bed. Knuckles wasted no time, as he zipped towards the bed and pulled the screaming Sarah out of the line of fire. He did it not a moment too soon, as Metal's attack tore a deep gash in the pillows, plush animals, and bedding, sending stuffing and feathers flying all around the room like a snowstorm.

Knuckles didn't stop to look, as he charged out of the room holding the screaming Sarah in his arms. Sarah took one look at what the robot's claws did to her bed, and fainted right there. Sighing, the echidna shoved the girl into Tails' arms.

"Tails! Get Sarah out of here!" he shouted. "I'll keep Metal busy!"

Tails hesitated for a moment. He looked to be unsure of leaving Knuckles alone to fight the robot. But then, he nodded and zipped back down the hall. Knuckles turned to face Metal, even though he knew this was probably a stupid idea. He still hadn't had a chance to recover from the injuries he'd received in their last fight together, and Robotnik seemed to have taken the time to repair his robot. Regardless, Knuckles went into a fighting stance and challenged the robot.

"All right...let's do this you metal pincushion!"

Metal's eyes flashed red, and then he "teleported" over to Knuckles. Just like in the last fight, Metal moved so fast that it was like he was warping rather than running from location to location. This time though, Knuckles knew that move was coming. He learned from the last fight that he had to attack even before Metal started moving, if he hoped to hit him. Knuckles threw a punch just as the robot teleported in next to him, and landed a hit on the head.

Metal Sonic's head bounced backwards to about a 45-degree angle, but then it snapped back into place. The robot responded by kicking Knuckles in the chest, sending him flying backwards across the corridor and into a mirror on the opposite wall. The glass shattered into a million pieces, and Knuckles winced in pain as the flying shards made many small cuts across his body. Not to mention, some old wounds he'd gotten in the last fight reopened, spilling blood across his fur. Grunting, the echidna dragged himself away from the mirror, trying to ignore the pain. He knew that focusing on it would mean his end.

Metal started to rev up his jet engine, which set fire to the carpet behind him as the flame came out. Knuckles widened his eyes, and jumped to the side. He was a tad too slow though, as one of Metal's spines clipped him while the robot blazed past. Metal smashed through the broken mirror's frame and the wall beyond.

Knuckles dragged himself up off the floor, holding one arm to the deep cut in his arm to hold the blood in. He stared in through the new hole in the wall, trying to see if he could spot Metal. Water splashed out of a broken pipe, wetting down the tiled floor Metal stood on in the next room. Judging by the ceramic fragments littering the floor, he'd just destroyed a sink after going through the wall.

In a second, Metal Sonic teleported back into the hallway. However, this time Knuckles was ready, as he jumped up into the air. He did a back flip in mid air, and felt his feet press against the high ceiling for a moment. Using the ceiling as leverage, he pushed off as hard as he could, heading straight for Metal like a missile. Knuckles brought up both of his fists to absorb the collision, and they crunched into the robot with the force of cannonballs. Metal smashed straight through the floor...and then the next floor...and the floor after that.

Grinning at his trick, Knuckles hovered above the new opening in the floor, before he started to let himself drop down through it to continue the fight. He made sure not to get too overconfident though. While Knuckles had gotten a lucky hit, Metal could take ridiculous amounts of punishment due to his hard metal body. This was only the start of the fight..

Tails ran for his life, holding the unconscious Sarah in his arms. The fox knew that Knuckles was in no shape to take on Metal by himself, but they had to keep Sarah safe in any case. At long last, he reached the echoing entry hallway. To save time, Tails jumped off of the landing and twisted his tails, going into a hover. He gently floated down to the floor, avoiding having to use the stairs entirely.

As soon as he was on the floor though, Tails took off running towards another flight leading towards the basement. The Presidential Mansion had a warp hole in a cavern underneath the building, which served as an emergency escape route. A false wall inside a pantry in the mansion's kitchen hid the corridor leading there.

The fox ran down another hallway, just as elaborately decorated as the bedroom corridor, and reached the end very quickly. After bursting through a door, he found himself standing in the mansion's kitchen. While this place would normally be teeming with cooks, preparing breakfast for the residents, they had already evacuated without stopping to clean up. The chefs left behind food in the middle of preparation in pots and skillets, while other things like a barrel of flour had been knocked over as people hurried to leave.

Tails made it several steps across the room, before the wall to his left imploded inwards. Pots and pans hanging from the wall flew all over the place in addition to the chunks of the marble wall. Tails ducked behind a metal counter to dodge the flying debris, and then he risked a glance upwards. Immediately, he wished he hadn't looked.

Another hedgehog robot stood in the new hole, with similar size and design to the first Metal Sonic. Longer spines covered the back, and the robotic eyes glowed green instead of red. Despite the smaller size and simpler design versus Metal Sonic 2.0, Tails found himself infinitely more afraid of this robot. Until one day ago, this machine was Tails' adopted brother Sonic. Technically it still was, but Tails just couldn't see his brother anywhere in that cold metal body and those soulless robotic eyes.

Tails choked up for a moment, before he took off running for the pantries. If he could just get there before Sonic caught up... Unfortunately though, Tails was far too slow. Sonic instantly warped in front of the door leading to the pantries, blocking the escape route. Tails felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead.

The fox quickly did a brainstorm, trying to think of something he could do to hold Sonic off long enough to get to escape. The only thing in reach right now though was a bag of flour. It would have to do, because there wasn't time to grab anything else. After putting down Sarah gently, Tails grabbed the bag, and hurled it as hard as he could across the room.

Sonic did a vertical cut with one of his claws before the bag hit him, slicing it in half. While it failed to knock him down, it did cover his entire front side in a coat of white powder. That included his eyes. Sonic took a moment to wipe the flour from there. Tails saw his chance, and picked up Sarah. He resumed his run, and steeled himself to run past Sonic. Unfortunately, Sonic apparently heard him approaching, and started twirling around like a top with his claws fully extended. Tails put on the brakes, just narrowly avoiding getting himself and Sarah chopped to bloody ribbons.

By now the spinning had flung the powder off of Sonic's body, and he could see again. Tails found himself in a tight spot. He couldn't fight Sonic and at the same time hold Sarah to keep her safe. What was he going to do? The metal hedgehog reared back his arm, and seemed to be preparing for an impaling attack.

Before he could strike though, the ceiling collapsed above him, crushing Sonic underneath a pile of debris. Metal Sonic emerged from the ceiling behind the debris, uncurling from his ball shape so that he went into a stand as he landed. Meanwhile, Sonic quickly cut the rocks on top of him to pebbles, with help from his claws. He stood up beside his metallic "brother", both of them blocking the doorway leading to the pantries. Tails backed away, and then broke into a run as he moved to leave the kitchen through the entrance door. Metal Sonic warped away from his position, to stand in front of him. The two hedgehogs now had Tails blocked from both sides.

Before either of them could make a move though, Knuckles jumped down through the hole in the ceiling, grunting as he landed. Blood poured from various cuts all across his body, but they didn't bother him at all. Sonic, who was closer, started to turn around to face Knuckles. However, the echidna was faster, delivering an uppercut into the hedgehog's chin which sent him flying onto a cooking range.

If he were still organic, Sonic would probably be crying in pain over getting burned by the hot stove. Apparently it wasn't so for him in metallic form, as he reacted to the intense heat on his body like the stove was turned off. A few faint burn marks scorched the back of his body, but otherwise there was no damage.

"This just keeps getting better and better..." Knuckles said, seeing that they were now facing off against both metal hedgehogs at the same time.

Tails didn't answer, instead turning to look at Metal Sonic behind him. The robot crossed his arms, and extended both sets of his claws to their full length. Tails steeled himself to dodge whatever attack was headed his way, when suddenly a troop of human guards rushed into the kitchen. All of them brought their laser rifles to bear, and opened fire. As the first blasts flew overhead, Tails ducked down to hide behind a counter with Sarah.

Over the firing, he heard one of the guards yelling, "Get the President's daughter out now! We'll cover you!"

Tails didn't bother to respond, as he picked up the girl and started rushing for the hidden exit. As he ran, the fox risked a glance over his shoulder.

Metal Sonic and Sonic decided to switch to attacking the guards instead, and warped over to engage them. While a few managed to get in some hits with their guns, the lasers appeared to have little effect on the robots' armor suits. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the counterattack against the guards. Metal Sonic claimed his first victim with a horizontal claw slash, taking a guard's head clean off. Sonic went into his spinning attack again, and ripped through several soldiers like a weed eater through blades of grass. The clean floor disappeared in the splatter of blood and organs.

Tails held back a few tears as he heard the pieces collapse to the floor, but he knew he couldn't try to go back to avenge them. If he did, their sacrifice would be a waste. Knuckles reached the door to the pantries first, and pushed it open. Tails chased right after him, pausing for a moment to close the door again and lock it. They ran through a hallway with many doors, each one leading to a pantry filled with a specific type of food. The one they were after was the liquor room.

Loud screeches filled the air, as one of the robots started to slice through the entrance door into the pantry area with his metal claws. It only took a few seconds, as the pieces of the destroyed door fell to the floor, the loud clangs resounding through the hallway. After that, two jet engines could be heard igniting. Tails tensed himself, preparing for the two robots to catch up.

At the same time, Knuckles made it to the door to the liquor room and opened it up. He stood aside to allow Tails to get inside. Beyond the threshold lay a room built with stone, and filled to the brim with large barrels of drink and racks of wine bottles. Once the fox and Sarah were in, Knuckles slammed the door closed and quickly pushed a large barrel in front of it. A second later, Tails thought he might as well have not even bothered, for all the good it did. Sonic and Metal Sonic smashed right through the thinner wooden door, and then straight through the barrel beyond. The alcohol soaked over their entire bodies.

But then Tails realized there was more to Knuckles' plan than met the eye. The jet engines on their backs ignited the alcohol, setting them on fire. While it probably didn't do any damage to the robots, at least it forced them to stop for a moment to put out the flames. Despite their tense situation, Tails couldn't help but grin a bit at the echidna's cleverness. The two robots started to wave their arms across their bodies to get rid of the fire. Meanwhile, Knuckles ran for the back of the room, where the secret passage already lay open behind a large barrel of beer.

Knuckles and Tails quickly darted inside, with Knuckles again pausing for a moment to throw a switch on the other side. A wall of stone slid back in place over the opening, hiding the passageway from view again on the other side. While it certainly wouldn't hold off Metal Sonic or Sonic, at least they'd have to waste some time trying to find where Knuckles and Tails had gone.

They sprinted down yet another corridor, this one made of rough rock walls. Caged light bulbs at intervals provided just barely enough light to see, while they could hear water dripping from the ceiling. This passageway looked to have been dug straight out of the rock underneath the mansion. Regardless, Knuckles and Tails hurried down the corridor as fast as they could. Metal Sonic and Sonic were right behind them, and they could discover the entrance to this hall at any moment.

For the first time though, they had a bit of luck, as the two metal hedgehogs didn't show up again the entire journey down the hallway. They finally arrived at a pair of open heavy steel doors. A warp portal hovered in the middle of a large chamber beyond, the soft light of the glowing gateway bathing the entire chamber in a blue hue. Tails could make out the silhouette of the President standing in front of the portal, along with his personal guards. He came over as he saw Tails and Knuckles approaching.

"I was getting worried!" he said, taking his daughter from Tails into his arms. "It shouldn't have taken you this long to get here!"

"Metal Sonic and Sonic started attacking the palace right after we reached her room," Knuckles said.

The President's eyes widened open. "Dear me! They're here already?"

"There's no time!" Tails said. "We have to get through that warp hole fast, before they catch up again!"

"Right!" the President said. He whirled around and gestured with his hands towards the portal. "Everyone through the warp hole, quickly! And seal off the entrance to the room as well!"

They couldn't shut off the warp hole itself; nobody knew enough yet about the portals to control them at will. However, even with how strong Metal Sonic and Sonic were, it would take them at least a minute or so to get through the hefty steel doors protecting the entrance to the warp room.

The President turned to the warp portal and jumped through it, and the other guards in the room quickly followed him. They quickly disappeared into the blue glow. Tails was about to jump through, when he realized they hadn't closed the door.

"Knuckles!" he shouted, heading for the lever next to the steel doors. "Get out of here! I'll close the door!"

"All right!" the echidna yelled back, running for the portal. "But be fast!"

Knuckles leaped through the hole as well, following the others. As Tails wrapped his hands around the lever to control the doors, he heard jet engines echoing up from the other end of the hall. Metal Sonic and Sonic had finally found the secret passage. The fox slammed the lever down, and the doors began to slide shut. Unfortunately, since they were so large and so heavy, they couldn't close quickly. Tails guessed it would take several seconds for them to shut at this rate. Trouble was, they didn't have several seconds right now. He had to do something to slow down the metal hedgehogs...

Suddenly, a burst of inspiration came to him. He moved to stand between the closing doors, to where his back and tails were facing the corridor. Next, after making sure he had a firm grip on the two doors, he started spinning his tails very rapidly, like a powerful fan. A gust of wind blew back down the passageway. The wind wasn't powerful at first, but it quickly gathered force. The narrow hall worked to increase the speed of the air stream, since the wind had to travel through a small space.

Tails glanced over his shoulder, and saw Metal Sonic and Sonic roar around the corner. His idea didn't seem to be working too well. The wind definitely slowed down the robots, but it looked like they were still going to make it if Tails didn't do something. He put on an extra burst of energy, forcing his tails to twist faster and faster. It was taking a lot of stamina out of him, but he just had to keep them back for only a couple more seconds...

Metal Sonic and Sonic slowed down more. They were starting to look like they were just hovering in midair, rather than moving forward at full force. However, Tails realized that the doors were going to squash him if this kept up.

Tails looked back at the warp hole, and let go of the doors. He shot straight forward to the blue portal thanks to how fast he'd been spinning his tails. At the same time, it kept the two hedgehogs from getting inside the room. Tails was dimly aware of hearing the clank of the doors slamming shut behind him, before the blue of the portal overtook him and he found himself swirling through the warp zone dimension.

Sonic furiously attacked the doors with his claws, but they were extra durable and would take quite a while to get through. At the same time, he was very happy Tails had managed to ensure everyone had escaped safely. It was just too bad he couldn't do anything to control his actions due to the roboticization procedure.

_All right Tails! Smart idea using your tails like that! Now let's just hope I don't manage to break through these doors before everyone can get away. _

It didn't take long to get through the door, between Metal Sonic and Sonic pounding on it like crazy. Eventually they made a sizeable hole in the metal, and squeezed through it into the warp room. Without so much as a pause, both of them dived into the warp portal. The warp dimension flew by the two of them, before another blue flash deposited them inside another manmade cavern like the first one. However, this cave had five tunnels branching out of the room, which made it impossible to determine where the escapees had gone. Inwardly, Sonic smiled.

_All right...they got away. That's a relief. But what's Robotnik going to make us do now? _

A voice crackled inside Sonic's head. It was the voice of Robotnik.

"I see that the President, his daughter, Knuckles, and Tails all managed to get away. Oh well…it doesn't matter. This will just slow things down a little bit. After the President sees the full extent of your powers, he'll surely surrender if he's got at least half a brain in his head. Now you two, go and destroy New Earth City! I don't want a single brick to remain standing! We need to make an example of it!"

_Oh God no...please don't make me do this. I don't wanna destroy this city! _

Regardless of what Sonic thought, he had no say in what his body did. Metal Sonic and Sonic rocketed back through the warp portal, off towards their first victim…


	2. Top Story

**Chapter 2: Top Story **

**September 6th, 2316 – 7:10 AM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

A full day passed as Augustine "Nail" Strafer slept in bed, but he didn't care. A lot of stuff had happened lately, and the gray arctic fox figured he deserved at the minimum twenty-four hours of sleep to recover from that hell he'd recently been through. So much had happened that it was all like a blur in his head. Getting the job to capture Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles; finding out in the end that it was all a set up by Robotnik; getting taken captive to Robotropolis; fighting Metal Sonic and roboticized Sonic; and then the battle to escape Robotnik's base.

Finally, at long last, he'd gotten back to his hideout in an abandoned apartment building near Robotropolis. Two people were with him. One was Redrum, his bounty hunting partner for a year now, and the other was a purple vixen named Canma Neuyan. It felt weird to have her here, because they never brought anyone home to their hideout for fear of word spreading on where it was. She wasn't a trusted friend at all yet; they'd only just met a few days ago.

But…she'd been one of the bounty hunters after Sonic and his friends too, at least until Robotnik revealed he was behind the bounty posting, and that it was a scam with no reward. After he and Redrum had been captured along with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, she came to their rescue as they escaped Robotropolis. How could he turn her away when she'd done him such a huge favor?

While Redrum went to recharge his batteries after they'd gotten home, the two foxes talked for a couple hours, had a drink or two, and then they'd gone to bed.

Thinking about Canma, Nail realized something. He couldn't feel her body warmth beside him anymore. Opening his eyes, he rolled over. Even in the dark of his bedroom and with his eyesight out of focus, it was already plainly obvious he was alone in his bed. She'd been there a while back...but how long ago was it the last time he checked? Two hours? Five? He really had no idea, since he hadn't glanced at his alarm clock at all while he was sleeping. Nail wasn't especially concerned. He figured she just probably got up earlier and was waiting in the living room or something.

As he slid his feet out of bed, he realized he felt a bit of a breeze around his privates. Looking down, Nail saw that he was completely naked, when he remembered going to bed wearing his boxer shorts. However, instead of being on his body, the garment lay on the floor next to where he'd just placed his feet. While a lot of furs on this planet felt comfortable walking around wearing nothing, Nail wasn't one of them, not even when he was asleep.

That wasn't the only odd thing on the floor. He noticed the wine bottle they'd been drinking from last night on the floor, shattered to bits. Nail instinctively edged his feet back from the shards, so as not to cut them. He vaguely remembered him and Canma having drinks before they'd gone to sleep, although he had no memory of the bottle falling onto the floor. Then again, last night he'd been so frazzled—between his messed-up mental state, pain from his wounds, and just a general tiredness—that he couldn't remember a lot of what went on.

Suddenly, his eyes widened, as his half tail fluffed up in fear.

_Did we do what I think we did? _

But on the tail end of that thought, he relaxed a bit.

_Oh well... I'm not a virgin. I've been through this before. Besides...I doubt Canma would want to hang around here much longer anyway, so it's not like this'll have any long-term consequences for me even if she conceives. _

Satisfied with his evaluation, Nail decided to just put it behind him and go about his morning routine.

He stood up straight as he got up off his bed, stretching his arms out fully as he let out a yawn. His fur stood up for a moment and his tail stretched straight out, before he relaxed his muscles. Once that was done, Nail shambled over to his private bathroom and turned on the shower. After going for days without being able to wash, the hot water and shampoo all over his body was like heaven.

Nail stayed in the shower for twice as long as he normally would, savoring the experience. Water was quite difficult to purify here in the middle of Robotropolis, considering all they had to work with was dirty sewage water. It was a long process. And yet, Nail didn't care that he was using it up. He figured he deserved to treat himself for now. Besides, a supply had built up since they'd been out looking for Sonic and his friends on that scam job.

At long last though, the fox stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, and walked over to his closet. A rack of clothes greeted him on the other side. He selected a simple outfit: green cargoes, a blue T-shirt, and tennis shoes.

After getting dressed, Nail stepped out of his bedroom and went into the living room, where he saw Redrum and Canma watching the Planet Freedom Broadcasting Company channel on TV. The two of them turned to face Nail as he entered.

Nail inwardly sighed in relief as he saw that Canma wasn't gone. He smiled at the purple vixen sitting on the couch, and she softly smiled back. However, Nail then found himself wondering why he was glad she was here, when they hardly knew each other. Was he…falling in love? Nail wasn't sure, because he wasn't familiar with the feeling. His lifestyle didn't exactly give him many dating opportunities, so he hadn't gotten a chance to fall in love with a woman. But with how Nail's and Canma's careers were similar, maybe he could finally work something out…

Before Nail could dwell on it more though, Redrum spoke up.

"Have a good sleep?" he asked.

Nail continued to stare at Canma.

"Hey," Redrum said, trying to get Nail's attention.

Nail blinked, and realized Redrum was talking to him. He turned to face the roboticized dog Freedomian.

"Yeah…I'm awake," Nail said. He paused. In an effort to keep the conversation going, he asked, "How long have you two been up?"

"I woke up about two hours ago," Canma said softly. Nail wasn't sure, but she seemed slightly embarrassed at seeing him. The vixen stared at Nail another few moments, before returning her attention to the TV set.

"And I finished recharging about three hours ago," Redrum said, filling in his bit.

Nail thought about asking Canma more about what happened last night, but he dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it came to him. The two of them wouldn't exactly feel comfortable discussing the subject in front of Redrum, and Canma didn't seem to be in a talking mood anyway.

"Well, all right," Nail said, as he closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm gonna make breakfast."

"Sure, sure," Redrum said, turning back to watch the PFBC news program.

Nail walked back into the kitchen, and opened up the refrigerator. The fox wasn't in the mood for cooking something, so he decided to resort to an old standby: PBJ. He pulled out a loaf of bread and grape jelly from the fridge, followed up by grabbing a jar of peanut butter from a nearby cabinet.

As he started work on the sandwich, Redrum decided to start talking again.

"Hey Canma," Redrum said, looking at the purple vixen.

Canma turned around to look at him.

"What is it?" she asked.

Nail wasn't sure why, but he instinctively felt that he wasn't going to like what Redrum was about to ask her.

"Well…did Wolf Eyes over there stink while you were sleeping with him?" he said, and then he burst out into laughter.

Nail narrowed his eyes at Redrum, as he continued to apply peanut butter to another slice of bread. Canma put on an angry glare as well. However, it didn't seem to phase Redrum at all. In fact, he laughed even more. Nail decided to try to shut him down.

"How would you know?" Nail asked. "You can't even smell anything anymore since you're a robot."

"Well until this morning you hadn't bathed for days," Redrum said, turning back to Nail. "We were too busy with that mission to capture Sonic and his friends for you to go wash yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if you smelled like you went for a swim in a vat of sweat."

Canma looked at Nail, shaking her head in embarrassment, and then steeled her eyes as she looked back at Redrum.

"For your information, he smelled fine," she said sternly.

Redrum stopped laughing. He seemed to have caught the message that his stupid comments weren't welcome, and shut up. It was a very good thing he did, because Nail felt himself close to deactivating his robot friend so he wouldn't have to listen to Redrum talking anymore. Redrum returned his attention to the TV set, and a few moments later Canma did the same.

Nail returned to work on his sandwich, as he continued to think about Canma. While he felt some attraction to her, she wasn't exactly good relationship material. Nail knew firsthand how much of a selfish bitch she could be, from the encounters he'd had with her during his last mission. It kind of overshadowed all the good Canma had done for him. But then again, he hadn't exactly minded her company before, with how they'd comforted each other over being partially responsible for Metal Sonic's rebirth and Sonic's roboticization...

As if on cue, the next few words from the anchorman on the TV news got his attention.

"We've just received word that New Earth City is under attack by what appears to be two metal hedgehogs."

Nail's head snapped up, as he turned to look at the TV Redrum was watching. The anchor, a blue chameleon in a brown suit, continued talking as Nail walked towards the TV. The fox moved to stand next to the couch, where Redrum and Canma sat.

"It's believed that Robotnik is behind this attack, since just a few months ago the very same city suffered a similar strike from Metal Sonic. It seems he's managed to build two more of those hedgehogs. The President's Mansion has been destroyed, and it's currently unknown what the President's status is. Much of the work to repair the downtown area from the first attack was quickly undone by the two new Metal Sonics. We now take you live to the scene with Patricia Yates."

The scene shifted to a human female with brown hair and a red dress, standing on a city street in New Earth City. Amidst her cars and buildings were burning everywhere, in addition to rocks and debris blocking off the entire street. People frantically dashed in and out of the camera shot, looking like they didn't know what was going on or what they should do.

Patricia herself looked very frazzled as well. She was regularly on PFBC, and she always tried very hard to keep her face, hair, and clothes looking immaculate, as if she were a model in a clothing catalogue. Instead, her hair fluffed up everywhere, a black streak went across her face, and shreds of cloth were torn from her normally spotless dress. Not to mention, it chilled Nail to the bone how frightened Patricia looked, because normally she was bright and cheerful to the level of being extremely annoying.

Her voice reflected the look on her face as she spoke, most of the words leaving her mouth amidst a frightened stammer.

"We-we're currently in the m-middle of the city! We were t-taking cover behind a townhouse but it...t-t-toppled over and nearly...and it n-nearly crushed us!"

The camera panned over to show a massive pile of bricks, metal, and wood that was once a building. The front end of a PFBC news van could be seen poking out from underneath the bricks, while the rest was completely covered up. As much as Nail hated Patricia Yates, he couldn't help but feel sympathetic for what she'd been through.

"The downtown a-area's been engulfed in c-c-complete chaos by the attacks!" she continued, trying to pull herself together. Nail had to admire the news crew out there, still sticking to their jobs despite the near death experience, but his attention was still drawn to what was unfolding around her. "Fear has gripped everyone, as they try to evacuate the city! We'll be trying to evacuate soon as well before...before..."

Nail saw her eyes widen as she looked to the right, off camera.

"Oh God no! They've hit another one!" she screamed, dropping her microphone and leaving the shot. "Run for it!"

The camera turned to face the human as she took off down the street, and it bounced up and down on the cameraman's shoulder as he followed her. Nail couldn't see what exactly was happening, but it was enough. Whatever they were running from, Nail didn't want to see. He knew it would be awful.

Against his wishes, the cameraman turned around just in time to catch a good shot of a gigantic skyscraper collapsing. Several holes had been made in the building at various points, like somebody with a giant gun had shot holes in it. It didn't look like critical damage, but apparently it was. The building fell downwards towards the camera, as if it were an upright broom that someone had just let go of. A dust cloud rose up as the building crashed down into the city below, taking out various smaller buildings underneath it. The dust cloud rapidly washed over the camera, obscuring everything.

Tears escaped Nail's eyes as he watched the broadcast. The PBJ sandwich slipped from his hand and fell apart is midair, with both halves landing on the floor with splats. However, Nail didn't even acknowledge he'd dropped his breakfast, with how focused he was on the images on the television.

_It's my fault this is happening. If I hadn't been such a selfish, greedy bastard and tried to turn over Sonic for money, this would have never happened. If I had just done what Carrie told me to do, everything would have been all right. I ruined everything..._

"Redrum...turn it off," Nail said, as he turned his teary eyes away from the screen. "Please, I don't want to see anymore."

Both Canma and Redrum turned away from the TV set. While Canma looked a little worried, Redrum still seemed to be in a jovial mood.

"Heh...queasy stomach Nail?" Redrum laughed.

Nail couldn't believe the words that had just come out of his friend's mouth. Did he really not understand that their actions had caused this disaster? Nail seized Redrum by his arms and pulled him up from the couch, so that the two of them were looking at each other point blank.

**"Turn the goddamn TV off right now!"**he screamed right into Redrum's face, spittle flying from his mouth. .

Redrum reared back a bit, surprised by the sudden violent reaction from Nail. Even Canma herself had gotten up, her mouth open in shock. For a moment there was nothing but the broadcast continuing to play in the background.

But finally, Redrum picked up the remote and turned it towards the TV set. Before he could press the button though, static and snow obscured the image. A second later, the image came back clear again, but it wasn't showing the PFBC channel anymore.

It showed a bald, fat human with a red handlebar mustache, dressed in a bright red coat. He had the most hideous grin on his face, as he twiddled his thumbs in front of the camera.

"Robotnik…" Nail hissed, practically spitting as he said it with violent hatred.

Redrum moved to switch off the TV, like Nail had asked. However, the fox put his hand on the remote and pushed it down, away from the screen, and Redrum got the silent message.

"People of Planet Freedom," Robotnik began. "I have a message for you. By now, I'm sure many of you have heard of the destruction of Planet Freedom's capital city. I'm also sure you already know that I'm the one responsible. Regardless, I now have two new toys in my collection that I am planning to unleash upon your precious little planet if you don't comply with my demands.

"One of them is a new model of Metal Sonic, and it improves upon the old design in completely: speed, stamina, armoring, AI, everything. All of you already know how destructive the old Metal Sonic was, so just imagine what this reincarnation will do to your cities should I decide to continue using it."

Somehow, Robotnik made his grin even more twisted and evil.

"As for the other, it is none other than Planet Freedom's savior, Sonic the hedgehog himself! I've run him through my roboticizer, and I have to say I'm very pleased with the results. It's no wonder the Sonic Unit has been such a thorn in my side for so long, and it's such a great feeling to have this power on my side. Anyway, Mecha Sonic and Metal Sonic have already turned your capital city into nothing but ruin. What's more, I ran a combat test earlier with them, and they easily defeated Tails and Knuckles before they managed to escape Robotropolis by pure luck."

Robotnik's grin faded, as he reached off screen to grab a piece of paper. He showed the writing on it to the camera. The top of the document read "Surrender Declaration of Planet Freedom", while text filled up the body of the paper. A dotted line sat at the bottom, awaiting a signature. Robotnik started speaking again, his tone suddenly very stern and loud.

"These are my demands. President Rudot will come to Robotropolis and he will sign this surrender document, thus giving me complete control of Planet Freedom and making me your new ruler and owner. If he does not, I will have my two metal hedgehogs destroy one major city every day until I get his signature on this paper. If I run out of major cities, I'll work my way down further and further until there aren't even any villages left!"

Robotnik slapped the paper down on the table in front of him. He did it so loudly it almost sounded like a pistol shot.

"You now have twenty-two hours, fifty-seven minutes, and forty-five seconds before I send Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic to destroy Carlboron, Zeraw. As for the military, they can do whatever they like to stop my two new toys, but it will make no difference. Everyone very well knows that the Sonic Unit is the backbone of this planet's defenses, and Metal and Mecha have already proven themselves to be more than a match for them. What's to say the rest of the military will do any better?"

He folded his arms.

"So, my soon-to-be subjects, if you don't want your hometown to suffer the same fate as your capital, I suggest you find your President and bring him to me as quickly as possible."

The image faded from the screen, going back to the PFBC again. Nail felt a tear escape his eye.

"Shit..." he muttered, burying his head into his arms on top of the couch. "We screwed things up so bad... We doomed the planet..."

"What're you talking about Nail?" Redrum said, sounding worried. He put a metal hand on the fox's shoulder. "What's gotten into you?"

Nail whirled around, tears dripping from his reddening eyes.

"Don't you get it?" he said. "If we had never agreed to do that job to capture Sonic and his friends, none of this would have ever happened! Everything would still be okay!"

"Nail...it's not our fault," Redrum said. "We didn't know that it was Robotnik who put out the bounty at the time. He was using an alias, remember? And there was that money…it was so good…"

"Shut up!" Nail screamed. "It is our fault! Our greed caused this!"

He waved one hand at the news broadcast on the TV set. Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic ripped through another skyscraper, causing it to shear in half and collapse to the ground. People on the ground frantically ran out of the way, but inevitably some died when the pieces crashed down on top of them.

"I feel like I don't deserve to live for what we've done," Nail said.

"It's okay, Nail," Canma whispered, as she moved closer to him. She wrapped her arms around him.

"What happened to your usual attitude?" Redrum said, looking his friend up and down. "All of a sudden you've grown a conscience. We've both killed tons of people in our lives. Why is this any different?"

Nail couldn't help but feel his rage boiling up more and more as Redrum continued to talk. It was like a volcano building itself up before it erupted.

"Well none of the work we did before ever doomed the world to destruction, did it?" Nail said, snapping at Redrum as he looked out over Canma's shoulder.

"He does have a point, Redrum," Canma said, turning around to look at Redrum.

"I can't believe you can be so apathetic about this!" Nail shouted, pointing at him. "You make me sick!"

Redrum backed up a bit, as he stared at Nail in shock. The fox himself was a bit surprised he was talking to Redrum like this. The two of them hardly ever got into fights with each other, and certainly none of their arguments ever reached this scale. Redrum didn't know how to respond to Nail's insult.

"Why are you getting so angry at me all of a sudden?" Redrum asked gently. "What did I do? I thought we were friends, man. You know how much what you're saying hurts?"

"You're making all these excuses!" Nail shouted, waving his arms around like a raving lunatic. "You're dodging your responsibility in this whole incident. You're not thinking about all the people dying there in the capital city at all! All you can think about is you! You you you! It was like that when we were on the mission too! You just wanted the money! You didn't even like it when I wanted to see my sister, since it would keep your money from reaching you faster! And just now you were laughing about how I stink so _you_ could get a laugh at mine and Canma's expense!"

Redrum fell silent. He didn't seem to know how to react. Canma even backed up a bit, horrified at his outburst. Nail breathed heavily as he looked between the two of them, and he started to realize what he'd just done, now that he'd expressed his anger. The glare faded from his face, and was replaced by him closing his eyes in embarrassment.

"Sorry…" he said. "I…I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I was on edge. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay Nail," Redrum said, patting his shoulder. "We gotta get our rage out somehow, don't we? You are kind of right after all… I've hardly ever thought about anyone but myself. It's just so hard for me to think of anyone else, because I've thought this way my whole life. It just comes out in my words in the way I act without me realizing it."

Nail nodded a bit, taking in what his friend said. He turned to face Canma. Surprisingly though…she was actually…_smiling_. What was all this about?

"Canma?" Nail asked curiously. "Why are you smiling?"

The smile faded from her face, a frown quickly replacing it.

"Well, I was just thinking," Canma started. "I want to go do something about what's happening right now, since I helped cause it. We're pretty close to Robotropolis right now, so I bet we can take advantage of that."

"What are you thinking about doing?" Nail asked.

Canma strolled over to a window. The central base of Robotropolis was visible from that place in their hideout. It was hard to miss, considering it stood high and wide over the tops of the smaller buildings surrounding it.

"Well…I was thinking. They're robots like Redrum is, right?" she asked.

"Yeah…so?" Nail asked.

"Then that means they'd have to recharge their batteries like him, right?" she asked, turning around to face Nail and Redrum.

Redrum shrugged.

"I guess so…" Nail asked, letting out a sigh. "I think I can see where you're going with this."

"Can you?" Canma asked, turning around.

"You wanna destroy the two of them while they're recharging inside Robotropolis, right?" Nail said, joining her at the window.

Canma hesitated for a moment, as if considering this would be a smart thing to confirm, but then she nodded slowly.

"Are you nuts?" Redrum shouted. "The Robotropolis Core is the most heavily defended military complex on the planet! I mean...just look at it!"

Massive laser cannons and missile launchers bristled all along the massive structure's walls, while jet fighters swooped around in the sky like birds of prey. Searchlights positioned at intervals swept their beams across the surrounding city, cutting through the darkness and smog in their search for intruders.

"You know Redrum…I think I disagree with you," Nail said, turning around to look at him. "Canma's plan could work. It sounds like the best way we can bring a quick end to this situation. All we really gotta do is get in that base, find out where Robotnik stores the hedgehogs, and then blow the shit out it when he brings his toy hedgehogs home. It sounds pretty simple to me."

"You're both nuts!" Redrum said, as he pointed to the foxes. "Why are you even doing this? Nobody's making you do it."

"There you go again Redrum," Nail said, with a sigh. "You're only thinking about _your _well-being, and nobody else's."

"Besides, we're in the same boat as everyone else on the planet," Canma said slowly, as she folded her arms. "If Robotnik isn't stopped he's going to take over, and like it or not we are going to suffer along with everyone else."

"Come on!" Redrum said, waving his arms for emphasis. "Let Tails and Knuckles handle it. It's their problem; not ours."

"You just don't get it Redrum," the vulpine said, stepping back towards Redrum. "This isn't something to treat lightly. Once Robotnik takes over, you could lose your free will again, and I know you hated not having control over your body."

"I suppose you do have a point," Redrum said, shrugging.

Nail smiled, as he pulled his favorite sniper rifle off of the gun racks.

"So…you still sure you want to stay behind?" he said, as he screwed a silencer onto the barrel.

Redrum seemed to be contemplating it for a moment, as he fingered his muzzle with one of his hands. Then, he broke out into laughter.

"Okay you two lovebirds. You win. I'm in too."


	3. The President Who Couldn't

**Chapter 3: The President Who Couldn't**

**September 6th, 2316 – 7:40 AM – Presidential Escape Train, en route to Elona**

Thousands of miles away, the same PFBC broadcast played on another television; this one was an expensive flat plasma TV hanging from a wall in a hover train car. The rest of the room oozed with opulence as well. A lush blue carpet covered the floor, offset by cream-colored walls decorated with expensive paintings from famous Freedomian and human artists alike. Cream couches sat in a small circle near the TV set, so soft and comfortable one would never want to get up again after sitting down on them. Meanwhile, endless blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and floating tropical islands slid past in the windows.

But nobody inside the car took in the luxurious atmosphere of the train. Everyone, the President, Tails, Knuckles, and his staff, focused on the images on the television set before them. Tails in particular took the broadcast very hard, as tears dripped from his eyes and soaked into the carpet below.

Knuckles put an arm across Tails' back, to give him emotional support. The fox turned to the echidna and nodded his thanks, before staring back up at the plasma TV again. The broadcast displayed footage from a helicopter surveying the destruction. Mecha Sonic and Metal Sonic finally left the city as the helicopter recorded their getaway, but it was a small condolence. The damage had already done, and it was a very heavy blow indeed. An estimate death toll of tens of thousands flashed across the screen, with more to follow later, and the entire city was virtually leveled to the ground.

However, Tails wasn't really seeing the images. Tails felt so broken by everything that had happened lately that he didn't know what to do.

_So much destruction…and there's plenty more on the way. And Sonic...he's really gone, and he's working for the madman we were supposed to be fighting against. He…he did that. Even worse…I've never faced Robotnik without Sonic by my side. What am I supposed to do? _

He sniffled again, another tear falling from his eyes.

_He's always been there for me, almost every moment of my life, but he's really gone now. I don't know what I can do without him…_

"So…" President Rudot started, interrupting Tails' thoughts. He sat on a couch next to the one the fox sat on. However, the President seemed to have lost his train of thought, as he listlessly drummed his fingers on an armrest. It appeared he'd been muted too by the destruction wracked to the capital.

"So…?" Knuckles repeated, looking at him oddly. He gestured with his hand to get the President to continue speaking.

"Wh-what do we do now?" The President sounded like a helpless child, one who'd just seen his parents murdered right before his eyes. The tone of voice definitely carried that kind of feeling in it.

Tails didn't reply, although he found it frightening how this man, who ruled over such a large planet, sounded so weak and afraid. While President Rudot normally didn't give off a powerful image of authority, this display of weakness was overkill, even for him.

"'What do we do?'" Knuckles' voice sounded harsh enough to be that of a stern school principal. The echidna sighed, as he slapped himself in the head, before pointing his finger back at the President. "What kind of a question is that? You're the President! You're supposed to be the one who knows what we do!"

The President widened his eyes a bit at Knuckles' reply. Silently, he let his eyes wander around the room. The guy looked too afraid to face the echidna head on. But finally though, he let out a sigh, and looked back at Knuckles."I'm sorry. But…but this situation…it feels like there's nothing we can do. Metal Sonic was unstoppable enough on his own, but now Robotnik's got an even better model on his side now, plus Sonic roboticized."

The President fell silent again. For a while, there was silence, but then his lips began to stutter. It looked like he was trying to say something, but he couldn't bring it out.

"Well, what is it?" Knuckles said, jumping up off of his couch. "Spit it out!"

The President finally caught himself. "I hate to admit it, but I'm seriously thinking about signing that surrender." Then he immediately looked back down at the floor, as he looked very ashamed for saying such a thing. Tails' head shot up, as the turned to look at the President.

"What? You just want to give up?" Knuckles screamed, as he stood practically right in the President's face. The President leaned back in his chair, trying to boost the distance between the two. Meanwhile, some of the President's guards began to approach, although Knuckles ignored them.

"Well, yes… I might have thought differently if Sonic hadn't been roboticized, but Robotnik's got our trump card now." The President sighed, as he shook his head back and forth. "I don't know what we can do now. I'm sorry."

Tails couldn't help but feel his eyes dry out as he heard the President's words. He knew President Rudot to be a softie, but the human had just reached all new levels of squeamishness now. Knuckles grabbed the President by the scruffs of his jacket, pulling him up off of the couch. Meanwhile, the secret service agents moved in closer. "Mr. President, with all due respect…**shut the hell up!**" President Rudot just stared at Knuckles, dumbstruck, as he tried to process that Knuckles had actually said that to him.

"Hey! Calm down buddy!" One of the agents shouted, as he and the others started to pull Knuckles back away from the President. The echidna promptly shook them off, doing it rather easily. "Stop it!" Another guard tried to wrap his arm around Knuckles' neck, but the echidna just grabbed the arm and threw the man aside. Tails jumped up from his seat to help.

"Knuckles! Come on!" Tails said, moving through the guards to get to him. Knuckles whirled around to face the young fox. Smoke seemed to be billowing out of his nostrils, as Tails tried to talk to him. "You shouldn't be talking to the President like that!"

"I'll do what I want! Free speech!" The scream actually shook the windows a little bit, and everyone backed off, including Tails. Now that he had more control of the situation, he turned around to face all of them. "There's no time for niceties here! We need a solution, and we need it fast!"

Even though the humans stood at least twice Knuckles' height, and they had muscles to match, Tails saw they couldn't help but back up at Knuckles' cry. About a second later, they started moving back to their positions. Meanwhile, the President still hadn't seemed to get over the shock that Knuckles had talked to him like he just had.

"Now you listen to me. All of you!" The echidna waved his hands around the room. All that was really missing now was the soapbox for Knuckles to stand on. Tails felt it rather uncharacteristic for him to be making speeches like this. "As long as I'm still able to fight, _I _am going to give it hell to Robotnik, whether or not you think we can win." The echidna whirled around to face Tails. "And you will too, right Tails?" Knuckles said, not missing a beat from what he just said to the President.

Tails' eyes widened, as he felt everyone in the room turn to stare at him. The fox really didn't like being put on the spot like this. Slowly, he spoke. "Yes…" The voice was stuttering though, and he sounded far from confident. How could he be? This was the first time he'd encountered such a situation. Knuckles glared at Tails, not satisfied with the response he'd gotten. The fox took the hint, and raised his voice as loud as he could. "I'll fight too!"

Knuckles smiled at him, satisfied by the vigor. "Now that's better." Tails smiled back, although he didn't feel the passion he'd spoken with. He hoped he'd be able to live up to what he'd just said… Tails sat back down on the couch, as Knuckles joined him.

"So…since Mr. President here doesn't have any ideas Tails, what do you think we can do to stop Robotnik this time around?" Knuckles looked at Tails intently, as did everyone else in the room. The robots were mechanical, so they all assumed he'd be able to do something with his skills. But what? He couldn't just pull an answer out of nowhere like they expected him to now. Tails wracked his brain, trying to think of something.

Finally though, something came to him. "When Robotnik first showed us the second Metal Sonic, I was thinking of building another device that can bring out the good side of Sonic's personality, just like we did with the first Metal Sonic." He sounded hopeful…

"But…" That word cut through Tails' confidence like a knife through butter. Robotnik told us he made it to where you won't be able to mess with his programming that way… He said the new Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic have been wired for protection against that kind of hacking attack."

The fox' ears folded against his head and his tails sagged on the floor, not moving. He'd forgotten all about what Robotnik had said about the mind control back in Robotropolis, with everything that had happened lately. "Oh yeah… I forgot. But…we still need a way to bring Sonic back to the good side. I wanna save the world, but I don't wanna have to kill him to do it…" Tails gathered himself up a bit. "Besides…it'll just take longer than before to bring back the old Sonic. Any piece of programming can be broken if you work hard enough." The President jumped into the talk next.

"But for now Tails. I think it would be a good idea to construct a weapon to beat them back. You can worry about thinking of a way to bring Sonic back to the good side once we manage to put his and Metal Sonic's powers in check." All the eyes focused back in on Tails once more. The fox really didn't like getting this kind of attention.

"Any ideas?" Knuckles asked. Tails frowned a bit. Like asking that was going to make one suddenly pop into his head… He was a genius with mechanics all right, but it wasn't like he could just pull out brilliant ideas from nowhere.

"Well…I…" Tails stopped after that. Inside his head, the fox replayed the battles he'd fought against Metal and Sonic back at Robotropolis. Nothing came to mind though. In terms of defense, those two were more or less unstoppable. Tails had seen Metal and Sonic shot, crushed, cut, beaten, blown up, and burned. Yet, they continued to attack like they hadn't been damaged at all.

However…one part of the battle at Robotropolis came to mind…

_Metal tried to punch Redrum, but the metal hedgehog easily dodged the attack. Metal followed right up with a kick that sent the robot dog sprawling. He fell to the floor with a mighty crash. Metal strode over him, and lifted up one foot above his downed opponent's head. Nail's eyes widened in terror, but then Knuckles took advantage of the opportunity to clamp the collar on Metal's neck. _

"_I did it Nail!" he cried out. "Fry him!" _

_Nail didn't need to be told twice. He jammed the button down on a remote control. An electrical surge swept across Metal's body. Redrum quickly rolled aside, watching the spectacle. Sparks flew out of the metal hedgehog's body like he was a fireworks display, lighting up the entire room in their glow. After a few moments, the sparks finally faded, and Metal crashed to the floor unconscious. _

Tails' eyes lit up. Of course…why hadn't he thought of that? A smile spread across his face. "That electric collar…" Knuckles raised an eyebrow, wondering what his friend was talking a bit. The smile on the fox's face just got larger as he turned to look at the echidna. "Don't you remember that collar you put around Metal's neck? The one that Nail and Redrum had?"

"Huh?" Knuckles seemed puzzled for a moment. For a bit, Tails felt worried he wouldn't remember, but then his face lit up as he remembered it. He grinned right along with Tails. "Yeah! Now I do! That was probably the only thing that seemed to work on them. Sounds good to me, but what are you thinking about? Some kind of weapon? A volt gun?"

The fox shrugged. He didn't know about that yet. The electric weapon idea was just a place to begin. "I dunno yet… I'd have to think about it. But anyway, if I'm going to make something, I'll need a lab to work in."

The President looked out the window, as the fluffy clouds and blue sky continued to flash past. He put on a smile, as he turned back to face the other two. "We're in Elona right now, you know. This country is where your hideout is based, isn't it?" Tails looked outside, and he noticed the Prez was right. They were here. Talk about convenient timing.

"Yeah, you're right. It shouldn't take long to get there, and I work best in my own lab anyway." The President grinned, as he stood up and took a radio out of his pocket.

"I'll inform the conductor to slow the train down then, so you can fly out of here."

"Thanks," Tails said, standing up from his chair, as the President began speaking into his radio. Just then, a thought occurred to Tails. The Tornado 2 wasn't back at the hangar. Oh well, that wouldn't be an emergency…yet. And maybe he could get somebody else to take care of it. "Say…we left the Tornado 2 up in Cictra, near Whisper Valley. Could you go send someone to pick it up for us, and bring it back to our hideout? We'll need transportation to Carlboron once I'm done building the weapon."

"Sure," the President nodded. "I'll get it there ASAP."

Tails smiled, nodding his thanks, as he walked past the President and towards the nearest exit. Knuckles also got up, but he walked towards the President first before heading towards the door. "You sure are acting different now than you were before. A few minutes ago you wanted to surrender to Robotnik." The President frowned. He looked a bit angry at Knuckles for pointing that out.

"What do you expect? Metal Sonic nearly destroyed Planet Freedom, and now Robotnik's got a new, better Metal Sonic and he's also got Sonic too. I think it's perfectly rational for me to think you can't win this one." Knuckles rolled his eyes at that response, before he let out a little sigh.

"There you go again. I'm amazed the people of this planet elected you for this job when you've been acting so spineless lately. Why did they pick you anyway?"

The President broke out into nervous laughter. It looked like he didn't feel too good about what he was about to share. "Well… The other candidate in the election of 2312, Tom Chen, seemed to have me beat just about everywhere on the planet. Everyone planned to vote for him." Knuckles just stared, wondering where this was going.

"Uh huh… So how'd you win?"

"The paparazzi overheard Chen talking to his wife at his home about how he wanted a fur chair for his desk." The President chuckled under his breath, turning a bit red. While it was a funny end to the election, it didn't exactly mean he was the better man for the job. Knuckles looked pretty amused too, and Tails found himself fighting back giggles. "It just snowballed from there. By the end of next week he was branded 'Tom the Taxidermist.' Everyone said he was going to kill all the Freedomians and make coats, chairs, bags, and what have you out of all of their fur and scales." Knuckles laughed high and loud at the ceiling. After he'd calmed down, the echidna started talking again.

"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So you won just by a fluke?"

The President rolled his eyes. "Well if you want to put it that way…"

"I don't think you're going to be able to win this war the same way. Robotnik learns more from his errors every time we foil one of his plans. The fact that he managed to get Sonic roboticized is proof of that. You're going to need to toughen up some more and actually _do_ something this time to save this planet of yours." Knuckles gave the President a gentle slap in the arm, which the President jumped at a bit. He hadn't been expecting something like that. "Stop depending so much on me, Tails, and Sonic." Knuckles pulled in President Rudot by the collar of his coat so they were now face to face. "You got that?"

The President tried to rear back a bit, but it was no use when he was in the grip of someone with hands like Knuckles. "Yes…" the President whispered, so quiet it was almost inaudible.

"Good," Knuckles said, releasing President Rudot from his grip. "I'll see you later then." Knuckles continued grinning as he walked past Tails and out into the hallway. Tails smiled a bit himself, although the smile faded.

While the conversation had helped him to forget about the situation they were in right now, he felt his fear coming back in full swing. Now that the planning was over, it was time to get to the doing. Thing was, he wasn't sure how he was going to cope being against his adopted brother Sonic for once. Sonic had more or less _made _Tails who he was now. Knuckles moved towards an exit door out of the train, as it opened up to reveal the blue sky below. The echidna turned to Tails. "Come on! We gotta get to your lab as fast as we can!"

Tails weakly nodded, as he jumped out through the door. Within a moment, he was whirling his tails to fly. Beside him, Knuckles fanned out his dreadlocks in order to glide. About a half hour later, the fox sighed with relief as he saw the Sonic Unit hideout come into view, as he and Knuckles flew over the last of the mountains on the island.

It was amazing how different things had been the last time he was here. He and Sonic were bored out of their minds…trying to think of something to do since Robotnik seemed to be giving up on world domination. They talked about going to the Grakoran Tournament to have a nice holiday break, and saying hello to Carrie. Then, they were supposed to arrive back about two and a half weeks later, fully refreshed from the vacation and ready to get back to their jobs.

But now…Tails finally realized why Robotnik seemed on the verge of giving up before this disaster: he was pooling his resources into his _real _project, Metal Sonic version 2.0. The little skirmishes had just been there to keep him and Sonic busy as he continued to perfect his latest creation. The Grakoran Tournament was really just a trap to kidnap Team Sonic, so Robotnik could program Metal Sonic 2.0 with Sonic's life data to activate him, roboticize Sonic, and at the same time provide test subjects for the trial run of his two new metal hedgehogs. Instead of having a nice holiday with Carrie, they had to cut it short to chase after bounty hunters who didn't know they were nothing but pawns in the whole plot.

And instead of being fully rested and ready for work again when he got home again, Tails had been running around for nearly a day without sleep. The fox wanted nothing more than to be able to collapse into bed and just have a little time to rest and sort through things.

However, if he did that, there wouldn't be time to save Carlboron from destruction. While Roboticized Sonic was new, Tails had no idea how long Robotnik had spent developing Metal Sonic. It had to be at least half a year at the minimum, maybe even a year or more than that. Meanwhile, Tails didn't even have a full day to design, build, and perfect a weapon capable of stopping Robotnik's hedgehog robots…


	4. Higher Walls

**Chapter 4: Higher Walls **

**September 6th, 2316 – 8:30 AM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

Nail, Canma, and Redrum all sat at the top of an abandoned office building, each with a backpack of explosives on their backs. They were close enough to the Robotropolis Core to allow them a good view of what they'd be up against in a minute. Nail raised a pair of binoculars, as he scanned the defenses around the bottom of the Robotropolis core.

A high concrete wall ran all the way around the bottom of the structure, standing at about twenty feet tall and topped with barbed wire. Beyond that, one had to run about fifty feet across a patch of open dirt. That area provided absolutely no cover whatsoever from the laser gun turrets on the second wall. Barbed also covered the top of this barrier, and it stood twice as high as the first wall. Assuming they got past all of that, they'd finally make it to the Robotropolis Core itself.

"Stupid walls…" Redrum said, sounding quite irritable. Nail couldn't blame him, because he felt the same way. Robotnik had all sorts of high tech weapons in there. Nail was a gun nut himself, and he couldn't resist an opportunity to acquire military-grade technology without having to take the long circuitous route through the black market to get it. The problem was that it was just a lot of trouble to break in here and get back out again with the gear.

"Couldn't you just shoot out those guns from here, Nail?" Canma sounded hopeful, as if he knew he would definitely think of some kind of solution. The vulpine couldn't help but smirk a bit inwardly. He felt kind of like a man protecting his woman. She continued with her talk. "You told me that's what this sipher gun is best at doing."

"That's 'sniper rifle' Canma," Nail chuckled a bit. He kept forgetting she knew so little about the modern world. That was something to think about later though. Right now they had a mission to do. He returned to the problem at hand. "Anyway, I can't just shoot one of them."

"Yeah…" Redrum said, as he let his shoulders sag. Again, Nail knew precisely what he was talking about. "Me and Nail found out the hard way that those turrets are rigged up to a security system. If one or more of them suddenly fail, a small troop of robots is sent to go investigate. By the time Nail shoots all of them out, we'll have a crowd of robot soldiers to deal with. Getting through this place in time isn't easy."

Canma's eyes widened out. She seemed surprised by what Redrum had just said. Maybe she was wondering how the robots knew they were supposed to come, based on the fact that no communications were sent to them. However, she didn't ask any further questions, and instead suggested another alternative. "We could use some of the bombs to open a hole in the wall."

"We can't just blow the whole place up…" Nail let out a sigh. That was something else they'd learned the hard way. Last time they tried that, Nail got hit with a stungun as they entered the compound, and Redrum only just barely managed to drag him out of there before they both got caught. "Robotnik's alarm system would light up like a Christmas tree and we'd be overrun in seconds."

"But there is one other thing we can try," Redrum said, pointing a finger at something on top of the wall. While Nail couldn't see it, he knew what he was pointing at at.

"What is it?" Canma jerked the binoculars from Nail's hands, and started scanning the area, trying to see what he was pointing at. "What're you pointing at?"

"There!" Redrum said, jerking the binoculars to one side with his hand. Canma looked a bit…and finally saw what Redrum was talking about. She noticed a thick metal cable running along the top of the wall. Each turret connected to it, and ran to a metal box at the end.

"Their power supply," Nail smiled thinly. He was surprised Robotnik hadn't noticed this critical flaw yet in his security network, especially with how many times Nail and Redrum had used it before to get past these walls. Oh well, he wasn't going to complain about it to the big man, that was for sure.

"But it's so small…" Canma said, turning to Nail. She looked rather doubtful. "Do you think you can shoot that from here?"

Nail instantly broke out into laughter. She doubted _his _skills with a sniper rifle? He'd practically grown up with his gun. Knew every scratch and dent on it. The thing was practically a part of him. "Are you kidding me? Sniping is my specialty."

She smiled back too. That notion of them being together Nail had back at the apartment actually didn't seem so far out there now. The vixen held up some ropes with grappling hooks on the end. She'd taken them from his storeroom. "I can get us over the walls. Plus I can cut away the barbed wire with my sword."

"That'd be a big help. We probably climb a lot slower than you do," Redrum said, patting Nail on the shoulder. Nail wished he wouldn't do that. Sometimes his robotic friend forgot what kind of strength his mechanical body put into his arms. Nail lurched forward a bit from the impact, but decided to just let it slide this time.

Canma seemed ready to get on with the plan, as the smile faded from her face, and she started talking again. Very businesslike, this woman could be… "How long do you think we have before the robots come to investigate when the power goes out?"

"About five minutes I'd guess," Redrum said. He also seemed to be ready to just carry out the plan, and drop the chitchat. "So once Nail shoot out that power cable, we're gonna need to hurry."

"Yeah… Maybe you two should go on ahead." As if to cement the plan, Nail raised up his sniper rifle and pointed it down towards the guns along the wall. "When I fire the shot, I'll call you," Nail started. "You two go on ahead without me and start climbing the first wall, but leave me a rope to use while you go to the next wall."

"All right man," Redrum said, standing up. "We'll be waiting on you." Canma nodded, and stood up with Redrum. The two of them ran over to a nearby fire escape and started clambering down the stairs. Meanwhile, Nail checked his watch, and decided he'd give the two about three minutes to get ready. When he looked at the watch again and saw that time was up, he nodded.

_Time to go to work_.

Nail brought the silenced sniper rifle up, zoomed in on the box, and fired. The electrical box went up in a shower of sparks, before shorting out. On one section of the second wall, the lights on the drone guns switched off. They had five minutes now. Nail reached for his radio clipped to his Kevlar vest. He spoke rapidly and urgently, slipping into a soldier-like mode.

"The drone guns in this area are down. Move forward now."

"Got it," Redrum said back. "We're going now."

"I copy. I'm on my way." Nail stood up, slung his rifle over his back, and moved towards the fire escape. The rusty metal stairs clanked loudly as he dashed down them as fast as he could. Within two minutes he was at the bottom. Not slowing down, Nail dashed down the street towards the first wall. He had to hustle, or he'd get left behind.

Just as he'd asked for, Canma left a rope dangled down the side of the wall for him to climb. Nail scrambled up the rope as fast as he could, using the concrete barrier as leverage. Finally, he reached the top, and pulled himself over. Sparing a moment, Nail glanced across the dirt patch towards the second wall. Canma already stood at the top, while Redrum was starting to scale the obstacle. The fox had lost track of time by now, but he guessed he had about two and a half minutes left before the security team got here to check out the power failure.

Not wasting any time, Nail jumped through the hole in the barbed wire, hung off the wall by his hands, and then let go. However, even though he hung off the wall to reduce the falling distance, Nail's legs spiked with pain as he landed hard on the ground. But, he didn't waste any time sprinting across the dirt field towards the second wall. Far worse things would happen to him if he focused on the pain now.

As Redrum reached the top of the second wall, Nail started to follow up behind him. "**Hurry up**," Canma hissed. She spoke just loud enough to be heard but not so much as to draw attention. Nail looked up at her, and he saw the purple vixen pointing off to his right. He looked to see what she was pointing at, and then his face fell.

In the darkness shadowing the dirt pitch further down, he could see several red pinpricks. That would be the eyes of approaching robots. Looks like Robotnik had decreased his patrol times for his guards. While it looked like Nail hadn't been spotted yet, that would change in just a few seconds.

Nail started up the wall as fast as he could, and then gasped in surprise when he felt the rope being yanked up suddenly. Looking up, he saw Redrum pulling the rope along, speeding the fox's ascent. Redrum's strength as a robot allowed him to accomplish the task easily. As he got to the top, Nail whipsered "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Redrum whispered back. Redrum slung the rope down the other side of the wall. The three slid down it, one at a time. Once Nail was down, he scanned the area. Apparently they were in a supplies area. Row after row of cargo container stacks stood high in front of him. The Robotropolis Core loomed up above them, Robotnik's visage on it giving an eerie mood to the place. It was like he was watching them right now.

Come to think of it, he probably was. This place had a serious surveillance network. Not wanting to be seen, Nail instinctively wandered over to hide in the shadow of one of the containers. The other two followed after him.

Canma looked around, seemingly unsure of how they were going to handle this. Nail didn't blame her. This complex looked very imposing to whoever saw it for the first time. Her voice sounded a bit timid, as if she didn't realize what she'd gotten into. "So what now?"

"We need to find a place where we can download a map of the complex," Nail said, peeking around the corner as he looked for hostiles. He pulled out the handgun strapped to his hip. "Apart from when we were held captive a little while ago, we haven't seen much of this base's layout."

"Yeah," Redrum said, nodding. He took the assault rifle off his back and held it at the ready. "So where are we gonna find a computer to download a map from?"

Nail shrugged, as he turned around to the other two. They were kind of playing it by ear right now. He didn't like that. He wanted something they could firmly latch onto. However, a map would definitely help out with that, and that's why one would be useful. "I guess we should just wander until we stumble across a terminal. There's bound to be plenty of them around, with how much Robotnik loves technology."

"Sounds all right to me," Canma nodded. "Let's go."

"All right… But be quiet. There's only three of us and who knows how many of them." Nail glanced around the corner again, as he looked down the corridor running between the stacks of metal containers. No guards in sight. He nodded to the others, and took off at a slow run down the passage, not wanting to make a big racket by going too fast. Redrum's and Canma's footsteps sounded behind him as well. Along the way, they saw a handful of guards, but this area seemed to be lightly patrolled.

Eventually, they arrived at the bottom of Robotropolis itself, where they hid behind yet another stack of giant metal containers. Nail looked upwards, and felt a little intimidated at how huge the base towered over him. However, he didn't let it drag on his mind, as he looked around the area for a computer terminal. Suddenly, he felt his shirt being tugged. Looking back, he saw it was Canma.

She pointed a finger towards a garage door set into the wall down from where they were. A computer terminal's screen glowed in the darkness, illuminating the surrounding area. Maybe that computer was there to handle the shipping orders for where all these containers had to go inside the base. "Is that a computer there?"

"Yeah…" Nail said.

He started to walk over towards it. However, Redrum put up an arm in front of him, before he stepped out from behind cover. "A bit out in the open, isn't it? We'll probably get spotted before we can find a map."

A fair point, but it didn't look that bad to him. There was another container right next to the computer anyway. Nail pointed at it. "That should help hide us from view."

Redrum saw it, and gave a little shrug. "Well, all right. Let's just do it real quick before someone shows up."

Nail nodded, as he sprinted across the blacktop towards the glowing computer monitor, sticking to the shadows where they were available. The other two followed up behind him.

Once they reached the monitor, Redrum opened a small hatch in his arm, and pulled out a cable with a connector on the end. He inserted the cable into a slot underneath the computer screen. The monitor lit up, as Redrum started cycling through the various menus and windows. Since he had a computer for a brain himself, he could directly communicate with the other computer via his cable, and thus issue commands much faster.

Again, Nail felt someone tugging his shirt sleeve. Sighing, he turned back to Canma. He wondered what it was this time, as the two of them looked each other in the eyes again. She gave him a small smile. "Hey Nail."

"What is it?" Nail whispered back. He tried not to sound to annoyed, but found himself failing miserably at it. Fortunately though, Canma didn't seem to be paying attention to his tone of voice.

"Maybe you should keep a lookout in case of trouble. On second thought, we are kind of exposed here." She waved around the area. The cargo container was only covering them from someone approaching from the right, if they faced back towards the security fences. Anyone heading in from the left, or from the walls would see them.

Redrum also nodded in agreement at that plan. "It could take a while for me to do this anyway."

"All right," Nail said, raising his sniper rifle. He wasn't exactly bothered by the idea. Just sitting in one place, not doing anything useful didn't really suit him. Going out sniping would be a good way to pass the time. "I'll go look for a good vantage point."

Nail rushed back into the container yard, and scanned the area for a place that would make a good sniper's nest. His eyes stopped on a gray metal warehouse about a hundred and fifty yards away. The thing was pretty tall…and the slanted roof didn't look that steep. What made the spot look even more attractive was a ladder running up one side, probably for maintenance. That would make getting on top of it cake.

Not wasting any time, Nail made another quick jog down an aisle of containers. However…as he was about to step in front of the warehouse, a door on the front opened up and a robot soldier stepped out. Backpedaling, Nail leaped behind the nearest cargo container, wincing a bit when his rifle made an audible "clank" against the metal. For a moment, he stood there, and then he risked a glance around the side of the box.

The guard didn't seem to notice the sound, as he disappeared behind another stack of containers over on the right.

Sighing with relief, Nail dashed the remaining distance towards the ladder, and clambered up as quickly as he could. He jumped up over the last rung, and stepped up towards the top of the slanted roof on the middle of the building. Nail went prone on top of the roof, checking out the view. It was perfect. He had a clear view of the area that Canma and Redrum were standing in next to the roll-up doors, and he could also see all the potential ways robot soldiers could approach them.

Nail brought his rifle to bear, scanning the area for any threats. However, like always, the security was pretty lax around the cargo area. Out of boredom, he decided to zoom in on Redrum and Canma to see how their progress was going. It looked like the two of them were talking with each other as Redrum worked with the computer. Oddly, it seemed to be a pretty involved conversation, from what he saw from here. When Redrum got a chance he looked Canma straight in the eyes and made a gesture or something.

Nail didn't like that… This was no time to be having a deep talk with one another. The guards might hear them, or they might be so caught up in talking they wouldn't realize they were about to be seen. Sighing, Nail reached for his radio and tuned it to Redrum's frequency. "What're you two talking about down there? You should be focusing on finding that map Redrum!"

He saw the two of them suddenly halt their talking, as Redrum unclipped the radio and began to apologize. "Oh uh…sorry Nail. But I was gonna call you…we found something interesting while you were gone."

That sparked Nail's curiosity, although he hoped they wouldn't get delayed too much by this diversion. "What is it?"

"This computer's got a program on it that prints shipping labels for these containers."

Nail blinked. A program for printing shipping labels? Why were they wasting time on that? Regardless, he felt intrigued to ask for more information. "Yeah? So? What's special about that?"

"Well if I can find the map and find out what room code applies to the metal hedgehog room, then we can stick a label on one of these containers, hide in it—"

"—And we wouldn't have to risk sneaking through the base the hard way, since we'd get shipped straight to where we need to go." Nail said, finishing for him. He grinned. "Excellent idea, Redrum. Well hurry up then. The guards aren't going to leave you alone forever-"

"Freeze intruder!" a robot voice screamed from down below. Nail blinked, and then looked down. The guard he'd ignored before had wandered back over, probably because he heard his voice. Talk about irony. Nail ducked back away from the edge of the roof, as a torrent of lasers tore up the metal. Jumping to his feet, he darted back to the edge again, and took out the guard with a headshot.

_Oh damn... Now I've done it. He's called for help by now, I bet. _

As he slung his rifle over his back, Nail rushed back towards the ladder. When he got there, he slid down, using his hands to control his speed. After the fox thumped to the ground, he hurried back towards where Redrum and Canma were. Nail shouted urgently into his radio as he ran. "Redrum, Canma! Hurry up with that computer! I've been spotted!"

"Oh great," Redrum sighed. Redrum's voice suddenly got quieter, like he was speaking away from the radio. He could hear some more chatter on the other end from Canma, but he couldn't make anything out. They seemed to be walking towards something. "Canma, could you cut open the lock on this container here? All right, good."

Nail heard a loud slashing sound, then a clanking noise. Redrum started speaking back into the radio again. "Don't worry Nail! I've found the map and I'm printing the label now, and Canma's getting our container ready."

"Roger that. I'll be there in about twenty seconds." A moment later, Nail burst out from out of his row of boxes, and veered right towards where Redrum was still fiddling with the computer. He tore a sheet of paper from a slot underneath the computer's keyboard, and started rushing towards a container that had its door open.

_Almost there…almost there…_

However…he glanced at the other aisles he was rushing past, and noticed he could see robot soldiers approaching the area. Nail poured on the speed, hurrying quickly towards the container Redrum was running for. Finally, the robot dog reached the box, and tore the label off of the sheet of paper he had in his hands. Redrum slapped the label on top of the label that was already there, and moved to get inside. Nail just managed to catch him as he was about to close the door. The dog breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the fox get closer. "Good, was getting worried."

Nail nodded, and slammed the door closed behind them. They were now standing in complete and utter darkness inside their metal box. The fox instinctively started moving towards the back of the container, but then he bumped into a metal box. Redrum pulled out a flashlight and switched it on. The inside of this container was nearly filled to the brim with smaller metal boxes, leaving just enough room for the three of them to all stand inside without touching each other. He hoped they wouldn't have to stay in here long…

Clanking footsteps approached the door of the container. Nail held his breath, as did Canma. Redrum would have too if he had to breathe. The clanking sounds continued. Redrum set down his flashlight on the floor and brought up his rifle to point at the entrance, as did Nail with his sniper rifle.

A loud beeping noise sounded outside, as the footsteps stopped. Nail gulped. For a moment or two there was complete silence. Then, all of a sudden, the clanking footsteps moved away from the container, as they spread out across the area again. The three of them waited a full four minutes before they dared to talk. Nail spoke first, after letting out a long sigh. "Phew… Glad that's over."

"What was that beeping noise for?" Canma looked rather worried. Nail wasn't feeling too safe himself. That could have been a bomb or something they'd left there.

"No idea…" Redrum decided to chime in too. He didn't sound too worried. "It's probably nothing. I mean, they all left after we heard that sound, right?"

"I guess…" Nail had to admit that was a good point.

Their words were cut off as they heard the sound of a large vehicle rumbling towards their container. The engine noise got louder and louder…until they heard the squealing of the machine's brakes. All was still for a moment, until there was a whirring noise coming from above the ceiling of their "room", followed up by a clank of metal on metal. Redrum murmured quietly. "Not…good…"

Then the entire container shook all over the place, and the three of them held onto whatever grips they could find to remain standing. The metal boxes shuddered next to them, and some started to fall down. Nail grunted as one of stone-heavy containers hit him. After recovering, he staggered over to press himself against the front of the boxes, to keep them from falling over. Redrum and Canma did the same, following his example.

"What's going on?" Canma shouted over the rumbling. But right after she said that, there was a thunk from underneath the floor, and then the rumbling stopped. Then there was a second clank, and more whirring. The sound eventually faded away. Following that, Nail heard the rumble of an engine starting up nearby, and then the floor underneath them started vibrating. Next, the floor jerked out from under them, but this time Nail put a hand out to keep himself from slamming into the cargo container's door.

"We must be on our way now," Redrum steadied himself against the force. Nail nodded, and he cracked open the door. Outside, he saw the container was now on the back of a moving flatbed truck. A concrete tunnel whooshed past, with exposed pipes and ducts lining the ceiling. Lights flashed by every so often, which kept the area illuminated.

"Our idea's working so far," Nail closed the door. "Now we just sit tight and wait until we get to the right room." He sat down on the floor, and Canma and Redrum did so as well. He cast a smile out to all of them. This was way too easy. However, they were far from being out of the woods. Nail had to keep his sense of alertness up, or he'd make a stupid mistake and end up killing all of them.

"Great," Canma let a sigh escape. She didn't look too worried about the situation. In fact, her early fear in the cargo yard seemed to have disappeared. That was good. Nail wouldn't have to worry about watching her anymore. "I can't wait to throw a wrench in that filthy human's plans."

Nail nodded to that. However, there was something else they needed to think about. They were still pretty much making this up as they went. So, they needed an escape route once the mission was completed. Yeah, the world would be safe once the hedgehogs were destroyed, but getting away alive would be great too, instead of getting some memorial somewhere instead. Nail had to bring it up with the others. "The bots'll probably check to make sure this container is empty before they send it back to the cargo yard, and we won't have anywhere to hide in that case. How will we get back out?"

"Don't worry about it Nail," Redrum said, as he sat stock still. Nail knew what he was doing. The robot was searching through his memory banks, looking through his more detailed files. "I'm checking out the map I downloaded to myself right now, and there's an aircraft hangar not very far from the Metal Hedgehog Room. We can steal a plane or something there and get out that way."

"Good to know you got us covered." He pat the robotic dog on the shoulder. They rode around in the back of the truck for about twenty more minutes or so, before the engine finally stopped. Nail stood up from where he sat on the floor, and pointed his rifle at the door. Redrum did the same. Canma pulled out her sword and held it at her side.

"Get ready," Redrum whispered. They heard the thunk of the handle being turned outside by a metal hand, before the door slowly creaked open. Outside in the big metal corridor stood a blocky worker bot, used for lifting and carrying cargo. It beeped in alarm when it saw the three intruders, but one sniper rifle bullet through the machine's head put it down very quickly. Nail jumped out first, followed by Redrum and then Canma. The gray fox moved to grab the worker bot by his legs.

"Gimme a hand," Nail whispered. While the metal body was heavy, the three of them managed to stuff the robot into the cargo container and close the door. Nail glanced around their surroundings, now that they had a chance to do so. It was another metal corridor, similar to the one he'd seen the truck going down the last time he looked outside. However, off to the left was a big doorway that had been left open, probably by the worker bot. They stepped on through it.

On the other side was a state-of-the-art laboratory. A large computer took up one entire wall, and on the opposite side were two glass tubes, which were obviously where the metal hedgehogs were stored when not in use. A large table that looked like an operating table dominated the center of the room, with drawers filling up the area underneath the flat surface. Nail opened up a few and saw that they were filled with wrenches, nuts and bolts, power drills, spare metal plates, and an assortment of other hardware. Materials used to maintain the robots.

"You know Nail," Redrum said, as he moved over to the computer. "Maybe I can download some more of Robotnik's files from here. It'd be nice if we brought back some extra presents for the government after we're done blowing this place sky high."

Nail's eyes widened at that thought. That information would be worth good money to the bigwigs back in New Earth City. Who knew how much profit they could turn spilling out all of Robotnik's plans to the government? Of course they should download those files. Nail needed no more convincing. "Do it."

The robotic dog again opened up his arm, and used the cable inside to plug himself into the terminal. He started going through the files again, as he downloaded them to himself. Meanwhile, Nail pulled out one of the plastic explosives, and walked over towards the tubes. He tucked a charge in behind the one on the left to where it couldn't easily be seen, and then he did the same thing with the other one.

After finishing that, Nail turned around…and Canma was standing directly behind him. She was so close that it surprised him how she'd gotten so close without him hearing anything. Nail instinctively edged backwards a bit. "Whoa… You gotta stop sneaking up on people like that, Canma." He chuckled a little bit.

Canma gave him a soft smile…and then she punched him in the diaphragm. Nail howled in pain, as the diaphragm pushed the air right out of his lungs. The vixen then followed up by pushing him backwards with her arms. Nail slammed into the metal wall between the tubes, before he fell down into a heap on the floor. That blow to the gut had really crippled his speech. He wheezed out his words. "What…**What are you doing**?"

"Stop!" Redrum charged across the room towards Canma.

However, before the robot dog could reach her, she pulled the pin off of a canister and tossed it into Nail's lap. A purple gas oozed out of the container, and Nail felt himself getting very tired as the chemical reached his nostrils. It was _Sconocea _gas…the same gas she and Nack used while trying to capture Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Nail knew very well how powerful this gas was. Anyone who breathed it in would be out for at least a day.

While Nail fought to keep his eyes open, it was a futile effort. Through his dimming vision, he just managed to see Canma hurling Redrum over her shoulder and into the wall next to him. That was the last thing Nail heard before he went to sleep.


	5. Exhaustion

**Chapter 5: Exhaustion **

**September 7th, 2316 – 6:20 AM – Carlboron, Zeraw **

A strong wind whistled through Tails' fur as he stood on top of the tallest building in Carlboron, but he hardly noticed. His eyes fluttered closed again for the third time in the last two minutes. Then he promptly hit himself again to make himself stay awake. Tails thought it was totally unbelievable how he seemed to be on the verge of sleep, even while he stayed standing up. This was definitely the longest time he'd gone without getting any proper sleep. He wondered just how he was going to get through this coming battle.

Large surface-to-air missile emplacements and AA gun batteries bristled along the roof, installed there just hours ago. The weapons pointed in all directions around the skyscraper, because there was no intel on which direction Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic would be approaching from. A radar dish stood up in the middle of the SAMs and AAs, watching and waiting for when the two deadly robots appeared.

The city lay out beneath Tails like a starry night sky, as the bright lights twinkled in the darkness. The Land of Darkness wasn't called by that name that for nothing. It was always dark down here, even when the sun was up like it was now. Tails just hoped the city would still look like this once the upcoming fight with the metal hedgehogs was over.

Despite all the artificial light, the city seemed dead when he'd walked through it on the way to this tower. Apart from military personnel, not a soul was out in the streets. The government evacuated the city after Robotnik announced Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic were coming here next. Casualties shouldn't be as high as they were at the capital city…but the property destruction would be a terrible blow to the people who lived here regardless.

Suddenly, somebody gave him a hearty slap on the back, which almost knocked him to the ground. "Hey Tails!" a cheerful, booming voice called out. Tails turned around, and found himself looking at a rather large and muscular bobcat. While that was daunting enough, the huge anti-tank rifle he held in his hands enhanced the intimidation even more, in addition to his military fatigues. This was Zack Marlborosso, formerly Lieutenant Marlborosso of the Carlboron Police Department. Tails learned Zack rejoined the military because "they get to play with nicer toys," as he put it.

The fox weakly smiled back at the massive bobcat. "Hi Zack." He tried to sound enthusiastic. Tails didn't think he did a very good job of it. However, Zack didn't seem to notice, as he squat down next to Tails so their faces were level. The cat had a big smile on his face.

"How's it goin' lil' buddy? Been having fun since the last time we saw each other?"

Tails and Sonic knew Zack from an encounter they had with him more than two years ago. That felt like a totally different life ago. For example, back then Robotnik thought Tails and Sonic were just two stupid little kids who'd never amount to anything. However, Zack helped change all of that. When Robotnik attacked Carlboron all that time ago, Zack led a counterstrike operation against the mad doctor's nearest base with the remnants of his police force. Tails and Sonic secretly tagged along to help out, and it ended with them forcing Robotnik to retreat. That incident landed Sonic and Tails permanent jobs in fighting Robotnik alongside the government's forces.

"Lots of fun…" Tails sighed. He still struggled to keep his eyes open. The fox wanted more than anything to just crawl into bed and sleep for a good half a day, but there just wasn't the time to do it with this coming fight. "I don't know about this battle…"

Zack just laughed, high and loud. Tails felt envious of how much energy he seemed to have. There couldn't be a starker contrast between the two of them right now. "Hey, you don't have to do all the work here, you know, just cause you're in this elite Sonic Unit thing now. Don't forget about the rest of the army." Zack waved his hand across the rest of the city, indicating the various other SAM sites, AA sites, jet fighters, helicopters, and assorted other defenses.

Knuckles, who hadn't said anything during this time, gently pat Zack on the back. "Thanks Zack. But keep a lookout for us for when Metal and Mecha show up." Unlike Tails, the echidna's voice seemed to have quite a bit more feeling to it. The lack of sleep didn't seem to be getting to him as much as Tails. The young fox guessed it was because Knuckles was older, and thus didn't need as much rest.

Zack smiled at Knuckles for a moment. "Will do. I'll get back to my post." After saluting the two of them, he walked towards a listening post at the base of the satellite dish. Tails and Knuckles were alone again.

For a minute or so, the two of them didn't speak. However, Knuckles broke the silence when he spoke to Tails again. "You holding up?" Looked like someone had finally noticed how tired Tails looked. The fox breathed a sigh of relief. He was wondering why anyone else didn't seem to have said anything yet. Tails shook his head no. "You're not?" He didn't sound surprised, although that was expected. He knew what kind of work Tails had been doing in the lab back home up till now.

It was a pretty stupid question though. Of course he wasn't holding up. He hadn't slept in ages, and to top it all off they were about to start fighting opponents they'd already had to run away from twice, ones that seemed unbeatable. And one of them was his mentor, who until recently had always been at his side in battle. "I've never been in anything like this before Knuckles. I'm used to fighting with Sonic always beside me."

Knuckles, always the one to attack any sort of problem head on, immediately offered a suggestion in the hopes of boosting Tails' confidence. "But you got along without him for a bit the first time Metal Sonic appeared."

He was right, of course…but things had been different then. Sonic was still free, and he'd come to help out in the end. But not this time. There'd be no hope of him appearing to save the day in the nick of time in this go-around. "That time we were just apart from Sonic for a little while. But not now. Now he's working for Robotnik."

Knuckles growled at Tails. Aggressive as always, the echidna kneeled down a bit and got right in the fox's face, throwing spittle into Tails' fur as he screamed at him. "Don't gimme that Tails! If you wanted to quit and just let Robotnik win, why didn't you do it sooner? We've come this far. We might as well go all the way." That was a good point there. If Tails didn't think they'd win, why was he here right now? Why hadn't he just encouraged the President to sign the surrender instead? Was it because of –

"Our new weapons. Look at all the work you put into them." After saying that, Knuckles held out his hands. Instead of his usual white gloves, two black gloves now covered his hands. Electrodes stuck out of the ends of the fists instead of the usual spikes. The nodes crackled with electricity. Tails too held up his right arm as he examined his own weapon. A huge, round blaster cannon covered his fist. He designed it to fire large electric bolts.

These were the electric weapons Tails built for the two of them to fight Metal and Mecha with. Tails sweated quite a bit in the lab to get these things built in time, and he wasn't sure if they'd work properly once brought into battle. There had been no time to test them…

And yet, he didn't want to just quit without seeing if these things worked at all. This wasn't like him. Tails and Sonic never went into battles expecting to lose; Sonic explained that was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he went into battle thinking he'd lose, he'd fight to lose, and then he really would lose. Tails was doing that right now. If he thought he was going to fail, then why didn't he just stay home and sleep instead of work so hard on these things? "You're right Knuckles," Tails said, running a hand over the smooth metal of his blaster. "Let's take this fight all the way."

An air raid siren pierced the air, causing Tails'ears to flick around. Was it time now? However, his question quickly got answered. A St. Bernard soldier shouted from the listening post. "Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic sighted! Approaching from the northwest!" Tails and Knuckles darted over towards that side of the tower of the tower. A small twinkle could be seen in the distance. Tails faintly made out two small blue dots in the distance, and they were approaching fast.

A loud burst of chatter echoed out from all the radios in the area. Only faint clips could be made out here and there, but it was obvious what they were all talking about based on them. "There they are! All units! Open fire! Fire at will!" All of the guns on the tower swung around and locked into position. Rockets whooshed away from the SAMs and laser cannons rattled on the AA guns. More tracers and missiles could be seen streaking away from various emplacements on the ground.

Within seconds, explosions, smoke, and laser bolts obscured the two dots. However, Tails could still see two hedgehogs silhouetted by the light of the explosions. His eyes widened as he saw them get closer and closer. The St. Bernard soldier screamed again, sounding very afraid. "They're flying too fast to hit!" Tails couldn't help but share some of his fear. They were about to fight those two robots there, and if they could dodge all of that mess...

"Get ready Tails! Here they come!" Knuckles broke Tails out of his thoughts, as he went into a fighting stance. Electric bolts arched between the two spikes on his electric gloves, causing blue light to sparkle around them. Awakened by Knuckles' shouts, Tails nervously brought his blaster cannon up, aiming at the approaching robots. "They're gonna hit the tower!"

A half second later, Metal and Mecha disappeared from view beneath the lip of the roof. Instinctively, Tails turned around, knowing they'd smash through the building. That turned out to be a mistake. The floor underneath Tails blew upward as the robots blasted through the ground. The world seemed to move in slow motion as Tails saw a chunk of concrete flying straight for him. It whacked him across the forehead.

Tails' head felt to him like a whole swimming mess of pain, as blood dripped down from where he got hit. The fox shut his eyes as he rubbed at the spot in an effort to soothe the pain. Vaguely, he was aware of falling backwards over the side of the tower. Tails weakly opened his eyes, watching the sparkling city rush up to meet him. He willed his tails to start spinning, but felt it exceptionally difficult.

Suddenly, an arm latched around his wrist, stopping his fall. He looked back to see Knuckles holding onto him with one arm, while he used the other to cling to the side of the building. "I got ya Tails! Just hold on!" Knuckles used one of his legs to kick open a nearby window, and threw Tails inside. The fox landed on a soft carpet. Tails' pain seemed to be subsiding rapidly. It looked like the concrete just clipped him, rather than full on hit him like he thought it had.

Tails stood up and found himself inside a nice office, with a big oak desk that looked quite expensive. The setting felt like quite a contrast compared to the situation they were in now. Before Tails had time to take a breath, he heard a loud explosion in the hallway, and then the door to the office blew off its hinges. Tails ducked the flying door, as it flew across the room and straight through the broken window.

Metal Sonic stood there in the entryway, his eyes glowing as brightly as hot coals. Tails brought up his blaster cannon and opened fire. A torrent of electric bolts lit up the office. However, Metal Sonic once again showed off his super speed. He "teleported" out of the way of the laser blasts, and appeared again right next to Tails. The fox brought up his cannon, but Metal Sonic gave Tails a kick in the stomach. Tails felt like he'd had the wind knocked out of him, as he flew back outside through the window. Somehow, Tails got his tails spinning, and managed to keep from falling.

He breathed a quick sigh of relief, but a shout from Knuckles brought him back to reality. "Tails! Look out!" The fox looked up. Metal stood at the window, holding the office's oak desk. Tails thought the robot was going to throw it at him, but it turned out he was wrong. Instead, Metal sped over to Tails, wielding the huge desk like a giant club. And yet, despite the table's heavy weight, Metal seemed capable of handling it as if it were no bigger than a baseball bat. The new weapon gave the robot a dramatic range advantage in his attacks.

Before he could move, Tails got swatted away like a fly. The fox felt like he'd been hit by a truck. He coughed up blood, which soaked into his fur. Once again, he managed to get his tails spinning. There was one good thing about that big hit though… Tails got knocked quite a distance away, which gave him a range advantage.

The fox brought up his blaster cannon and let loose a stream of lightning bolts. This time, Metal didn't teleport. He simply flew over instead and tried to dodge Tails' shots the ordinary way. Perhaps that desk weighed him down too much to do that teleporting maneuver. One shot from Tails struck home on his chest, causing Metal to pause a bit. Tails put on a slight grin at that, feeling a little more hopeful now. The cannon seemed to be working… He fired several more bolts, and they struck Metal in rapid succession. The robot shook and rattled from the hits. His systems didn't seem to take the electricity too well. However, Metal Sonic seemed to realize using the desk put him at a tactical disadvantage, so he tossed it aside…

…and then it came flying straight back and smashed into him. The oak desk exploded into a thousand splinters as it came in contact with Metal's hard metal body. The robot shuddered and made various mechanical bleeps, obviously not expecting such a surprise at all. Tails looked off to the side where the desk had come from, and saw Knuckles hovering there. It looked like he'd caught the desk and thrown it back at Metal. He grinned broadly, and flashed a thumbs up. "I got your back Tails!"

Tails sighed in relief. He was glad he had Knuckles helping out, but so far the fox's own performance hadn't been quite up to snuff. Knuckles saved him twice, not to mention Tails got hit by several big attacks. The young boy felt he really had to do better, and resolved to clean up his act from here on out. He returned his attention to Metal Sonic and fired several more lightning bolts. With Metal already focusing his attention on Knuckles, the bolts struck home. Metal shuddered even more dramatically than the first time, his body sparking with the high-voltage electrical shocks.

Suddenly, Metal turned and fled, quickly zooming back in the direction he'd come when the attack started. Tails looked on in confusion as the robot flew away. Knuckles narrowed his eyes, and folded his arms together. It looked like he was trying to figure out what was going on too. Without the battle, everything felt eerily quiet. However, Knuckles broke the silence. "Where's he going? Why'd he attack us and not the city?"

Tails didn't have any real firm theories, although there was one idea he thought up offhand that seemed to make sense. "Maybe they have special orders to kill us first? Robtonik does know we're pretty much the only people who can stop Metal and Sonic."

Another blue hedgehog robot teleported behind Knuckles and grabbed him by the arms. Knuckles got so caught off guard he and Tails didn't even have time to blink. "Sonic!" The echidna gasped out, realizing he'd been jumped by his roboticized friend. Knuckles _would _have used his electric gloves, if only Sonic hadn't effectively immobilized his arms by grabbing them. To add insult to injury, the robot whirled around so that Knuckles was now in the line of fire if Tails chose to shoot at Sonic. Tails growled, as he raised up his blaster cannon. The two opponents stared each other down, as they waited for each other to make a move.

After a few seconds, Tails heard the crackling sound of a radio coming from Sonic himself. It was Robotnik, talking through a speaker on Sonic's robotic body. He gave a little chuckle, sounding most pleased with himself on this turn of events in the battle. "Tails, it looks like we're in a stalemate here. Allow me to help bring it to an end. You and Knuckles surrender to me right now, or I have Sonic twist your echidna friend's arms into a pretzel. They'll snap right off. The decision is yours now, little fox. Just say 'I surrender'. You have three seconds to choose."

Tails' eyes widened. How could he possibly— "One," Robo said. The fox raised his gun arm up, but Sonic pretty well had Knuckles covering him almost completely. "Two." Not to mention, the two of them were a pretty good distance apart, and Tails had no sniper scope. He didn't know how he was going to get out of this.

The young boy's lips started to quiver, the words on the edge of his tongue. At last, they started to come out. "I…I surrend-"

But before he could finish, a sound like a cannon shot thundered across the sky. Sonic got thrown for a loop at the same time the blast echoed. The robot released Knuckles as he spiraled out of control for a few seconds, before righting himself. Tails saw a pretty good-sized dent in Sonic's armor where he'd been hit. No ordinary gun could have done that… The robot glanced at the rooftop of the skyscraper, and Tails followed his eyes to see Zack there. He held the smoking anti-tank rifle in his hands, a sniper scope mounted on top and the barrel smoking. The bobcat grinned at his two friends, flashing another thumbs up.

But then Sonic teleported over to the top of the tower, and tore off a missile mounted on one of the SAM launchers. As a jolt of terror spiked through his body, Tails realized what he was about to do. The fox started to fly towards the tower, but everything happened before he moved less than five feet. In an instant, Sonic flew backwards away from the tower, before hurling the rocket straight at the roof of the building. Half a second later, the explosion ripped apart the entire skyscraper's top. Secondary blasts from the ammunition stored up there tore apart the roof even more.

Tails' mouth opened in shock. It happened so fast he wasn't even sure at first if it really had happened. But then it started to sink in, and so did the pain. Zack had been a good friend of Sonic, Tails, and Knukles, and to see him just get blown away like that felt like getting hit hard physically rather than mentally.

"Tails! We need to stop Sonic now!" Without waiting on Tails, Knuckles glided towards the building, before he kicked off of it and angled himself straight towards Sonic. The echidna threw a punch at the robot as he glided by, but Sonic easily avoided the attack and teleported behind Knuckles.

However, Sonic didn't realize that Tails flew up behind him as well. The fox unleashed a torrent of electric bolts straight into the robot's back, riddling his body. Sonic whirled around, easily dodging the second round of attacks.

But now it was Knuckles' turn to have a shot. While keeping his dreadlocks fanned out, he smacked and punched Sonic around so hard that the robot was sent flying away. Sonic quickly righted himself after the attack. However, he seemed to be retreating, just like Metal had done earlier. Tails still pondered what exactly was going on. "Why are they doing that?"

However, it wasn't a good thing they were leaving. Far from it, in fact. They'd just lost an opportunity to stop Metal and Sonic right in their tracks. Robotnik's terror plot could have ended right here if they hadn't let them get away so easily. Tails thought about trying to pursue them, but it was pointless. The two robots were simply too fast to keep up with when it came to speed. "Damn it…" Tails felt so helpless to stop this mess. He didn't even get a chance to avenge the death of Zack. To be denied that felt so very very painful.

"At least the city seems to be safe." Knuckles seemed a little less angry about the outcome. Tails supposed it was a good attitude though to take what life gave you, rather than fussing about what you didn't get. However, the fox didn't answer. Tails didn't particularly feel too good about any of this, especially with that burning skyscraper in the background. Somewhere in there was all that was left of Zack Marlborosso, and Tails would never be able to speak to him ever again.

As usual though, Knuckles seemed to ignore the emotional pain, and instead focused on what needed to get done right now. He glided over towards the fox. "Tails…come on. There's nothing more we can do for Zack. Let's head down to the ground and get debriefed." The fox continued to stare silently at the remains of the tower. Growling, Knuckles shook his arm. He felt like the echidna was going to pop it right out of the socket. "Come on! Zack's sacrifice will mean nothing if we waste all our time mourning him and let Robotnik get ahead of us!" Tails cast his tear-dripping eyes to the echidna. Knuckles just stared back with battle hardened eyes, with none of the emotional pain Tails had crossing them. "There will be time to mourn once this is over, but for now we've got this to deal with. Let's go."

Tails weakly nodded. He slowed down the rotation of his tails, so that he gently flew downward towards the ground. Knuckles did the same with his dreadlocks, as he allowed the air caught in them to be released.

Within just a few minutes, they were sitting in two metal chairs in a tent. On the opposite side of the tent stood an old yellow bilby wearing a military uniform with big rank insignias. He wore a big, hearty smile that completely clashed with his intimidating-looking uniform and physique, and spoke warmly to the two Sonic Unit members. "Good work you two. The city's secure."

Knuckles frowned. He didn't look very pleased by that remark. Tails wasn't either. Driving off the two robots had come at a high cost. "I don't think it'll stay that way for long. Metal and Sonic could come back here at any time."

"True…" The bilby said, nodding in agreement. However, his warm mood seemed to persist, as he continued to speak. "You must have done something right though. You scared off Robotnik's new toys, when we've seen they're strong enough to rip apart a city in just minutes. Now that is a real feat if you ask me." Tails smiled, although with Zack's death on his mind he wasn't much in the mood for talking. The general looked over at Tails and noticed the redness of his eyes from the crying, and the grin disappeared from the official's face. "Something wrong Tails?"

Tails choked back his sniffling and tears long enough to speak. "Friend of ours died today. Zack Marlborosso. He was on the tower when it blew up." The bilby reared back a bit, caught off guard by Tails' answer.

He looked rather embarrassed, as if he thought he should have known what had happened up on that tower. "I'm sorry. But anyway, you two have earned some rest I think. I'd definitely say something isn't right with Robotnik right now. It's not like him to just suddenly quit on an attack like that, especially when he knows he's got overwhelming forces. You really must have damaged them good with those new weapons of yours."

Tails looked at their new weapons, and felt a small spark of pride. Even though he'd only put these together just hours ago, they seemed to be working just fine. They'd proven themselves combat-worthy. If only he could have discovered this under brighter circumstances, Tails would be beaming with pride over how his weapons saved the city.

The general continued talking, as he paced back and forth around his desk in the tent. "We were watching from afar with our binoculars. They were shorting out quite a bit. Metal and Sonic were having a hard time flying away from the city in a straight line even. So yeah…maybe this'll earn you a rest period. Even if they got away, it's gonna take time for Robotnik to get them fixed back up again."

Again, Tails couldn't help but feel a small burst of pride hearing that, but his overall depressed mood pretty much eradicated any happiness he felt. Regardless, he nodded and answered the general. "I guess you're right."

"We've arranged a tent for you nearby," the bilby said, slipping into a business-like tone. Go on ahead and get some sleep there. You two look like you really need it. I'll wake you up if we need you for something." The bilby started to head for the flap of the tent they were in. "In the meantime, I've got to go supervise the reconstruction of the northwest front. While you two were fighting Metal, Sonic destroyed a lot of our forces over there. Big gaps in our defense network all over the place, and they'll take a while to plug back up again."

Knuckles nodded in reply, and so did Tails. While the bilby had been friendly, Tails felt better that he was going. He just wasn't ready to cheer up right now. Tails wanted to stew a bit in his bad mood. However, he said none of this to the general, not wanting to look impolite. Mercifully though, the bilby general finally left. "See you two later," the bilby said with a wave, and then he left through the tent flap.

After he went, Knuckles stood up and yawned. "Well Tails, let's go to bed." Tails yawned as well. That battle had been extremely tiring, especially now that the adrenaline had all drained away. Now he was left with the aftermath of that rush, and the tiredness that came with it.

He couldn't have agreed more with Knuckles' idea on what to do next. Not to mention resting might give him some time to clear his head up a bit… Lord knew he'd need a clear mind if he were to start working on a reprogramming device to get rid of the mind control in Metal and Sonic. "Right behind you…" He was too tired to say the words with much energy.

Despite the fact that every step was a forced effort, Tails forced himself from his chair and out through the tent flap with Knuckles, outside into the camp. The shelter was only one of many tents set up out here, since this was a Freedomian Army field HQ. It stood in a city park, so big green trees loomed up overhead. However, the neatly trimmed grass wasn't so lucky. Many trucks, tanks, and other vehicles had quickly transformed it into a muddy, grimy mess as they kept driving over it. In fact, a big cargo transport was going by right now. Tails had to move back a bit to dodge the flying mud when the truck went through a giant mud puddle.

Knuckles tugged Tails by the arm, as he walked alongside the dirt track. "Come on Tails. I wanna get some sleep." Tails slowly nodded back. He felt too tired to say anything more. The walk to their beds took no more than a couple of minutes, but to Tails it felt like hours. Finally, they stood in front of a tent with a sign that had their names on it.

Pushing the flap aside, Tails saw their room was simply appointed. Just two simple military cots, a canteen of water, a box of military rations, and a lit electric bulb mounted on the tent frame. A military dwelling through and through. But the fox didn't care. More than anything, he wanted to just jump on one of those cots and go to sleep for the next half a day or so. Tails quickly jumped onto one of the cots and pulled the covers up over him.

"Have a good sleep Tails," Knuckles said.

Tails gave a feeble wave to Knuckles in response, but he was already sliding off into dreamland. In fact he'd only just barely acknowledged the echidna had said anything. Despite everything that had happened lately, Tails went to sleep surprisingly quickly. Within just minutes he was already in a deep sleep.


	6. The Source of Hatred

**Chapter 6: Source of Hatred**

**September 8th, 2316 – 12:20 AM – Lissof Forest, Tneicna **

Nail sighed. He sat on a rotting wooden bench in a stone cell, although it was better than sitting on the moldy, wet floor. A set of metal bars kept him locked in the room, while torches flickered on the jail corridor's wall. Nail couldn't see very far to either side of his cell, since stone walls blocked the view on the sides of the room. It felt like he was back in Robotropolis' prison all over again. The only improvement was that this cell had a small, barred window to allow in some moonlight. "That bitch…" A guttural growl underlined the words.

Canma locked him up in here, after she'd knocked him out with that gas at Robotropolis. While he was extremely pissed off at her, Nail had no idea what was going on in her head. Didn't she hate Robotnik? Didn't she want the metal hedgehogs destroyed? It made no sense for her to just turn on them like that. What did she have to gain from doing that? Nail couldn't think of a single, solitary thing. Maybe she really was insane, like he originally thought.

Earlier, she'd told Nail about how he'd been used as a hostage, so she could force Redrum to steal one of Robotnik's cargo ships from a nearby hangar. Then, all together, they'd flown in the machine over to this isolated location in Tneicna. Apparently it was her hideout, but the only thing Nail had seen of it was this cell block. Redrum was being held somewhere else here, probably to keep them from discussing an escape plan or something like that.

Nail's ears perked up at the sound of a heavy metallic clunk at the end of the hallway, followed up by metal screeching on metal. Somebody seemed to be opening a heavy door at the end of the jail corridor. After that, two sets rapid footsteps echoed off the stone walls, heading straight towards Nail's cell. The fox blinked.

_Two sets? Who else is here besides Canma? Those footsteps are too light to be from a robot. _

The fox moved in a little closer to the bars to see who it was. Canma appeared first, followed by a male raccoon that Nail didn't recognize. A dark blue body suit covered him, a bit like a male version of Canma's red body suit. Over that was a small suit of black armor, and a red bandana on his head allowed a tuft of his brown fur to dip down over his black "mask". A whip hung coiled up on his belt, as well as holsters for daggers. Nail eyed him curiously, but all he got back in return was a glare from the raccoon. He looked rather angry about something…

"Hello Nail," Canma's words interrupted Nail's examination of the stranger. Nail grumbled a bit under his breath, before turning with an annoyed look towards her. "How are you?" She sounded a bit like a woman who was greeting him at an office, like they were coworkers together there.

Nail already had a bone to pick with her, and that perky attitude just flared him up even more. However, he kept that repressed. It wasn't like he'd be able to act on it very well considering the bars stood in the way. Instead, he used a little sarcasm as he spoke. "Just peachy." He waved his hands around. "I love this place."

"Glad to hear it." There was that perky office girl attitude again. He could almost visualize her standing there in high heels, a woman's suit, and some file folders under one arm, ready to do her work as a secretary for some big boss. "Redrum and I are going on another little mission in Robotnik's flying machine."

Nail felt a pulse of fear run through him. What the hell could she be up to now? He asked a question reflexively, without really thinking. "What kind of mission?" As he thought about it, he decided that maybe he might could get some other answers while he was at it. "Is it like the one we were on before? Why'd you attack us anyway? We were about to do exactly what all of us were planning to do. I don't understand why you'd just deliberately screw us all over like that." He had to admit he felt kind of stupid asking all of these questions, because of how in the dark he was.

"Everything will become clearer in time." Canma seemed to be on the edge of laughter. The smile on her face made him think that. Probably because she thought it was very funny how she knew everything about what was going to happen, while he didn't have a clue. Nail really wished there was something he could do to get back at her, but there just wasn't anything to be done as long as he was in this cell. However, at least she didn't actually laugh, and continued to talk. "Just be patient. But now, like I was saying, me and Redrum have something else we need to do now. For your sake, he'd better cooperate."

Nail felt a twinge of fear run through his body. He asked another question, although he was pretty sure he knew the answer to this one already. "Why's that?"

"Because if we don't complete our mission and report back here within the next twenty four hours, my brother Falc here will execute you." Nail snapped his head to face the raccoon. While he'd expected his life was on the line over this, that little word 'brother' threw him a curve ball. His mouth hung open in disbelief as he once more examined the raccoon. He'd have never known it if she'd said anything, considering they were different species. Looks like they had mixed parents, just like Nail's parents were fox and wolf.

"Well, I believe that's all I need to tell you for now." Nail turned his head back towards Canma. She still had that perky attitude. All of a sudden though, the fox realized he's never seen her like this. Canma always seemed to be in some kind of serious mood, not really showing much emotion beyond that. What was getting her so excited?

_Must be something really big if she's acting like this. Not really looking forward to finding out later what exactly she's doing. _

"I'll see you later, handsome." Canma sarcastically blew a little kiss, before turning to walk back down the corridor. Nail growled a bit under his breath.

_Took advantage of me when I was sleeping, locked me up in this cell (probably after doing it again), and now she's acting like we're boyfriend and girlfriend. First chance I get to kill her, she's dead. _

As the door closed, Nail moved his gaze back to Falc. This was hardly an improvement over her being gone. But, hopefully, the raccoon would decide to bugger off somewhere until time was up. It couldn't be soon enough, with how Falc constantly glared at Nail like he was some kind of hideous, disease-ridden filth.

Much to Nail's relief, the raccoon walked out of sight from the front of the cell. However, his hopes were quickly dashed. Falc returned within a few seconds, holding a wooden chair in his free hand. The raccoon placed it where he could keep an eye on Nail, and then sat down in it. Then, there was silence. Neither of them said anything, as they stared each other down.

_You mean to tell me he's gonna just be sitting there all this time, just staring at me like that in this stony silence? I think I'd rather have Canma teasing me again. _

Well…maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but if Falc really was Canma's brother, he wouldn't be surprised if the raccoon had enough psycho mentality to stay here the entire time. Nail wanted to say something to break the silence, but talking to someone who'd be killing him a day from now didn't sound like an appealing proposition. The fox decided to settle for silence, and he lay back down upon his wooden bed.

But Nail quickly realized that he couldn't stand just laying here, doing nothing, while quietly waiting for his execution. Besides the fact he wanted to do something to escape, there were too many questions burning in his mind. What were Canma's plans? Was there anything he could do to stop them? What kind of mission was she taking Redrum on? How did her brother here fit into all of this mess? Perhaps he could coax some answers out of Falc. It wasn't like Nail had anything to lose, and he had plenty of time to kill too.

Nodding to himself, the fox sat up on his bed and turned to look at the raccoon once more. Falc's stone cold gaze still hadn't wavered, and because of that he didn't exactly look to be up for a conversation. However, Nail had to try anyway. Time to break the ice. "So, you're Canma's brother, eh?" Nail smiled a little, crossing his legs.

Falc just stared silently back, not saying anything. Nail mentally noted that coon boy hadn't said a word since he'd come into the cell block. The whole air around him just felt a little eerie. Nail wasn't going to let that stop him though. He continued talking. "Canma never told me she had a brother. You a bounty hunter like she is? You look like one." Nail motioned towards the whip and the daggers on his belt. Still, no reply, but Nail didn't give up. "I'm one too, in case she hasn't told you already. Maybe we could talk a bit over our recent bounties or something, you know?" Nail smiled slightly, inviting Falc to respond in some way.

But the raccoon persisted in saying nothing. Nail sighed internally. It looked like he wasn't going to be able to get through to Falc. That look in those stony eyes hadn't faded since Nail started talking. Perhaps he could try again later. Nail laid back down upon his cot, not bothering to say anything else to Falc. Time passed. Nail wasn't sure how much had gone by, but if he had to guess it was probably half an hour. It felt a lot longer than that though.

Suddenly, a loud beeping noise echoed through the cell block, causing Nail's eyes to pop wide open as he lay on his cot. He flipped over and turned to face the source of the noise. Oddly, it seemed to be coming from Falc. The raccoon pushed back the left sleeve on his uniform to reveal a wrist watch. Nail's eyes widened in surprise.

_What's he doing with that? Wrist watches were invented by humans, and I know Canma hates their inventions just as much as the species itself. So why's he got one? I think he'd have similar views to her. _

Nail stood up and leaned against the bars, so he could get a better look at it. "Where'd you get that from?" he asked. What happened next was totally unexpected. Falc suddenly drew out Nail's handgun, pointed it right at the fox's head, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

"**Get away from me!**" Falc shouted with the tone of a madman, like one who was crazy enough to try anything. Nail was so caught off guard he fell backwards and landed smack on his ass on the moldy floor floor. Meanwhile, Falc extended his gun in through the bars. "**I'll kill you!**" Nail, too afraid to say anything, just scooted backwards while breathing heavily, his back hitting the rear wall of the cell. There was no more room left to run. It looked like this was the end. He closed his eyes and waited for Falc to put a bullet in his skull.

But instead he was greeted by laughter. Nail opened his eyes and saw Falc laughing so hard he had to lean on his knees to support himself. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, although what Falc said next made it plain. "Oh that was good! You should have seen the look on your face! It was priceless!"

Nail's mood shifted from terror to total bewilderment. His mouth hung slightly open in surprise. "…Huh?" The words just got mumbled out, as Nail was still trying to recollect himself after such a surprise move.

"It was a joke," Falc said, grinning as he plopped back down on his chair. "I gotta do _something_ to pass the time before I gotta kill you for real, or I'll go crazy."

Nail just sat there, staring at Falc. Quite ironic how the two of them seemed to have changed places after the raccoon's stunt. Now Nail was the one staring in stony silence, while Falc talked. But the fox could hardly blame himself. He didn't exactly find his life being a trigger pull away from ending to be funny. Even if Nail had killed many people in his line of work, he didn't take joy in tormenting them before killing them. That was just adding insult to injury.

Nail expected Falc to egg him on more for his reaction, but thankfully that wasn't how it went. Instead, the raccoon quieted down and sat on his chair again. He actually looked slightly embarrassed for what he'd just done. "Sorry. I didn't think you'd take it that way."

Nail did a double take. Sorry? How was Falc feeling sorry about all this supposed to make up for what he'd just done? Nail's life literally could have ended in that very moment. The fox was speechless for a few moments, before he finally found his voice. "What kind of sick sense of humor do you have, you wacko?"

"One that's different from yours, apparently." Falc just shrugged, like what he'd just done wasn't _that_ big of a deal. He seemed to be treating it like he'd just done some casual kind of practical joke. What he said pretty much reflected that attitude. However, Nail couldn't think of any kind of good comeback.

He eventually just settled on a quick reply. "Damn right." After that, Nail settled back down on his cot and got ready to go to sleep. The fox didn't want to talk anymore, now that he knew Falc was an asshole who thought putting someone in a near death situation was funny.

_Screw talking to that jerk anymore._

Before he could get far off into dreamworld though, Nail got interrupted. "Do you know anything about what's going on here?" The fox's eyes shot open. Had Falc really said that? This night was just full of surprises. However, for a moment he couldn't help but wonder if this was some kind of ploy for another joke. That seemed to be the likeliest possibility.

"Screw you and your humor. I'm going to bed." Nail closed his eyes again. However, this time Falc interrupted by standing up and rattling the cage bars a bit. The fox sighed, as he pressed his ears closed. Why couldn't Falc just go back to being stony quiet like he was before?

"I'm serious." Falc did sound serious, actually.

_And besides, maybe answering him will make him shut up._

Grumbling, Nail opened his eyes and sat up again. "So, you're Canma's sister, and even _you _don't know what she's up to?" A hint of disbelief colored the whole statement. However, Falc still looked dead serious as the raccoon shook his head.

"No… We hardly ever work together on missions anymore."

Nail furrowed his brow. "Why's that?"

Falc pointed at his watch. "I like modern human technology, and she doesn't. She deserted me over that. I think it's kind of silly, don't you?" Nail gave a small smile, as he wholeheartedly nodded in agreement with Falc's question. He'd thought the same thing upon finding out Canma's opinion on human technology himself. At least he and Falc had that in common.

Falc continued talking. "But something was different this time. She needed me for help on this job she was talking about with you earlier."

"What are you supposed to do in this job?"

He shrugged. "Just keep an eye on you really, and execute you if necessary. That's all I know. It's all I'm getting paid for by her any case." Nail cocked an eyebrow at that. This conversation kept getting more and more interesting.

_She even keeps her brother in the dark… Either this is something really, really big, or he's lying. _

Nail scrutinized Falc carefully, seeing if he could detect anything that could hint he was lying. As if reading his mind, Falc spoke up again. "Really, that's all I know." He waved his arms around a bit for emphasis. That didn't convince Nail though. This could easily be some kind of trick.

"I don't believe you." Nail folded his arms, to represent how closed he was to the idea that Falc really didn't know what was going on. He decided he'd probe for more intel. "Surely she's told you something more."

Falc shook his head again. "She hasn't."

"I bet she has."

Falc sighed, sounding rather irritated. "What do you say we just drop talking about what I know? It's not going to get us anywhere anyway. If we keep debating about it, all I'm gonna keep saying is that I know nothing, and all you're gonna keep saying is that I know something."

"I guess you're right…" Nail sighed, and laid back down on his cot. A slight smile crossed the fox's face, as he just thought of something. "Don't wanna end up arguing like five-year-olds at recess, do we?" Falc nodded back. The two of them were quiet for a little while, since they couldn't think of anything to talk about.

However, Nail suddenly had a question that had been burning in the back of his mind since he met Canma. He sat back up on the cot all over again. "Can I ask you something about your sister?"

"What is it?" Falc leaned in a little closer, seemingly interested in what Nail was about to say.

"Can you tell me why she hates humans so much? Whenever she's around, she keeps going on and on about how they're the scum of the universe, but I've never heard her give any personal reasons why she wants them gone." Nail found himself feeling a bit expectant. Those questions had been bothering him for quite a while now, and the answers would be a huge relief.

Falc, however, didn't look too enthusiastic about giving out answers. He leaned back in his chair so that the front two legs lifted off the floor, while the back of the chair hit the jail wall. Falc seemed to be making himself comfortable, like he was about to talk for a while. "Are you sure you want to hear it? I could be talking for a while about it."

Nail chuckled a bit. "Well, it's not like I'm going anywhere for a while." Nail waved his arm around his cell. "I'd say I've got plenty of time." Falc slightly grinned. He straightened himself up in his chair, and started talking.

"I'd say her hatred because of how humans have affected the village we lived in as kids."

For some reason, the thought that Canma had a childhood home shocked him. It wasn't like he didn't think it was impossible for her to have actually been a child. He found himself focusing more on wondering what kind of childhood had created the psycho he knew today. "Your village? What did they do?"

"Up until about a decade ago, our family ran the Neuyan School of Combat in a secret village in this country. It ran for entire generations. In fact, before the humans got here over a century ago, it was the most prestigious war academy on the planet. Warriors from far and wide competed ruthlessly just for the privilege of even being considered as a student of the school."

Nail thought that to be very interesting. He felt a bit like he was in the part of a slasher movie where the masked killer finally had his disguise stripped off, exposing who he was at long last to the audience. "Why's it not that way now?"

"Basically, our academy only trained people in the arts of ancient weapons and battle tactics. We trained people in things like bo staffs, swords, shields, spears, maces, those kinds of things. Everybody knew the Neuyans were the best at doing that, but then the humans came along and changed the face of warfare on this planet forever."

"You mean…with how they have things like guns, explosives, tanks, and all that other stuff?" Falc nodded somberly. He seemed rather sad to be having to relate this story. Nail couldn't blame him.

"Yeah… All of a sudden the world's armies didn't need us anymore. We lost most of our student body. We had to scale back to just being a fighting school that people only come to when they need a hobby of some kind. Everyone in the family hated having to downgrade the academy like that to keep it alive. That, I think, was the starting point of our hatred for humans.

"Through the next hundred years, each generation made sure the hatred was carried on further and further, until it got to me and my sister. Canma soaked that stuff up like a sponge from my parents, as I'm sure you know. But me…I didn't want to make any judgments against humans before I had a chance to actually meet them and see what they were like. That I think was the best way to see if they really deserved to be driven off this planet."

Nail sighed. If only Canma had thought that way, she'd be a lot less awkward to hang around. Not to mention she'd definitely be able to function in today's society much better than she did right now.

"I think it was one specific incident that really got her hatred boiling to the level it is today." Nail's eyes widened. He leaned in closer. Now they were really getting to the good bits. Falc didn't say anything for a moment, so Nail waved for him to continue.

"Yeah? So what happened?" .

"It was several years ago, during the first Robotnik War…"

_Falc and Canma stood on a patch of bare ground in the middle of Neuyan Village, staring each other down. A bright hot sun bore down on them from above, making sweat drip from their fur. A couple dozen spectators watched from the sidelines. It was always a treat when the two Neuyan siblings fought. The two of them clutched to long wooden bo staffs. _

_With a cry, Canma did a horizontal swing at Falc with her pole. Falc brought up his staff to block it, and then followed up by using the new leverage with his staff to push her backwards. He had more strength since he was a male, so it wasn't too difficult. She backed up towards the edge of their arena, marked by a ring of small stones. Falc saw an opening to end the match quickly, and pushed harder since he had her on the defensive. _

_That turned out to be an error. Canma dodged to the side, and then whirled her staff around. The pole whacked Falc on the back of his head as he went running past her. With the momentum of his attack already helping, Falc went flying right out of the ring and landed face-first in the dirt. The people standing around the ring cheered. Groaning, Falc dragged himself up off of the ground as well. However, he gave a bow to Canma, and she bowed back with a smile. _

_Suddenly, a dark shadow swept over the village, followed by a loud thundering noise. Was a storm approaching? Falc whirled around to stare at the sky, and his mouth fell wide open. A massive metallic flying machine hovered in the sky, shining in the sunlight and bristling with hundreds of cannons. An emblem on the side of the ship showed a face of a human with a huge moustache. That meant it was one of Robotnik's ships However, it didn't seem to be attacking them. In fact, it looked to just be passing by. _

"_Look, look!" A robin spectator pointed a wing at the sky to the south. Off in the distance, other similar craft seemed to be approaching through the sky. These carried the emblem of the human government on Planet Freedom. _

_Before Falc could analyze the situation more, loud gunfire erupted from the Robotnik airship overhead. Bright lasers and rockets flew off towards the human ships in the distance. The deafening sound forced him to clasp his ears closed with his hands. Then, the human battleships responded in turn, adding more chaos to the battle. _

_A few explosions ripped across the Robotnik battleship above, sending burnt metal shards raining down on the village. Standing out here in the open definitely wouldn't be a good idea. "Get to cover!" he shouted, struggling to be heard over the roaring cannons. _

_Everyone in the village flocked out of their homes, heading north where a large cliff stood high above the village. The caves there would provide shelter for the village's population during the attack. People quickly scrambled through the forest separating the community from the base of the cliffs. Falc joined in as well, but he found it rather rough going with everybody else trying to head in the same direction. _

_All of the villagers screamed and shouted at one another. Babies cried in their mothers arms, while children called out for parents they couldn't find. Parents did the same as they searched for their missing kids. The current group of trainees seemed to be looking for their fellow classmates. Between the yelling of the people, and the sound of the massive battle waging overhead, there seemed to just be a solid wall of noise all around Falc. He had trouble trying to piece together what was going on._

_However, he couldn't help but notice a loud whistling sound, getting louder and louder. It appeared to be coming from the south, where the human battleships were. The raccoon turned around to look. A big, shiny missle bored down on the village, getting closer and closer by the instant. _

_Falc turned around and poured on the speed, but the missile hit the town just two seconds later. A horribly bright light filled Falc's vision, as the explosion ripped across the houses. Then the force of the blast sent him flying into a tree head-first. The impact caused him to black out for a minute or so. _

_When he came to…it seemed to be a lot quieter than before. All he could hear was the dull pop and hiss of flames slowly consuming everything around him. He opened his eyes, and realized all the forest foliage around him was on fire. Falc tried to scramble to his feet, but his head spun from the earlier impact. He ran a hand across his head, and the fingers came away bloody. Regardless, he forced himself up, and stumbled back towards the village, trying to avoid getting burned by the flames everywhere. _

_But then when he got to the village…there was nothing there. A big crater sat in the middle of the town, right where he and his sister were having a friendly spar just a little earlier. All of the huts in town were either blown to pieces, or burning to the ground. Above it all, the humans and Robotnik's forces continued to fight with another, seemingly oblivious to the chaos they'd caused on the ground below. _

_Falc heard a loud grunting behind him, and slowly turned around. Canma staggered out of the burning forest towards him. A large gash across her forehead caused blood to pour down over her face and into one eye. Tears ran across her clothing in several places, and she cradled one of her arms, which had a big bloody gash in it. Her usually immaculate purple hair now hung around her head messily. Canma moved to stand next to Falc on the hillside above the town. She saw the village, and began to weep. "Damn them… Damn them all," she rasped out, her voice sounding weak. _

_She turned her eyes upwards towards the sky. Canma cried and sobbed, waving her arm at Robotnik's battleship and the human battleships in the distance. "It's all their fault this is happening! They fired that weapon before!" She fell to her knees, staring at the burning village below, what used to be her home. A soft patter of tears escaped from her eyes. "None of this would have ever happened if humans had never come to this world! None of it! It's their fault! Damn them all to hell!" _

_She fell to the ground and sobbed in her arms, as the destruction continued to unfold in front of the two of them. She looked up at her brother, and started speaking between sobs. "Why did… Why did they do it Falc? Why? What did we ever do to them? I don't understand…" Falc moved over, kneeling down next to his sister and putting a hand on her back as she cried. He did the best he could to offer her comfort, although it didn't seem to do much good. _

_Suddenly though, she rose to her feet. Her eyes seemed full of fury, as she stared at the air ships waging war with one another in the skies above. "One day, I'm going to make them pay. I'm going to make all of the humans pay for what they've done!" And then she walked off into the forest away from the village, not looking back. _

"And she's had that attitude towards humans ever since," Falc said, crossing his legs. He let out a little sigh, apparently none too happy about having to recall this story again. "The village has never recovered. The only people I know who still live there are our parents."

Nail nodded. That sounded horrible. And the fox thought he'd had a rough childhood. Made what he went through look like a cakewalk. "Now I understand why she acts the way she does…"

Falc nodded slowly, before he fell silent for a few moments. But then, the raccoon blinked and looked at Nail. "Hey…you don't think?"

Nail tilted his head, wondering what Falc was getting at. "Don't think what?"

"This plan she's not telling either of us about has to do with getting revenge on the humans?"

"Maybe…" It definitely seemed like a possibility, come to think of it.

Falc leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I just thought she needed help on some random bounty. But it doesn't seem right for her to not tell me about anything if that's all this is. I really hope it isn't that way. I mean…even to this day, I don't think the humans really meant to attack our village. Maybe it was just a misfire or something when that missile was sent straight to us."

"A misfire? Like an accident?"

"Yeah. They didn't fire at us any more after that. I tried explaining that to Canma later, but she just blew me off. She's dead set on believing the humans really did what she thinks they did. It's pointless trying to change her mind about it." Falc sighed and shook his head. Looked like he was recalling many past incidents where he'd failed to change the mind of his sister. Nail couldn't help but chuckle a bit at that, since he understood the raccoon's dilemma.

"She's definitely a stubborn one. I learned that firsthand…"


	7. Cogs Turning

**Chapter 7: Cogs Turning **

**September 8th, 2316 – 7:00 AM – Carlboron, Zeraw **

Tails and Knuckles sat inside a communications tent stationed in the middle of Carlboron's park. Ever since the two of them successfully drove away Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic, not a peep had come from Robotnik. They had no idea where he was going to strike next. While Knuckles didn't like not knowing what city was next on the chopping block, there wasn't a whole lot they could do about it. All they could really do was wait for confirmation of another attack, and then rush to the scene as fast as possible.

However, Robotnik seemed to have missed his deadline. The first two attacks occurred at 6:30 am on the past two days, but that time had come and gone without any word on the metal hedgehogs. Knuckles looked at a clock on the wall. "He's late."

"Yeah…" Tails breathed a small sigh of relief at that. Perhaps this time they'd get a day off or something. "Maybe our new weapons really damaged them or something, and he has to do lots of repair work." Knuckles smiled at that, and Tails smiled as well. Despite how rushed he had been to come up with Knuckles' electric fists, and his own electric hand cannon, they seemed to work just fine. The young fox sat up from his chair. "If that's the case, maybe I should get back to work on that device of mine to break Robotnik's mind control programming."

"Sounds like a good idea." Knuckles stood up as well. "How's progress going on that thing?"

Tails sighed. In all of the rush, he hadn't had a lot of time to work on it. "Just getting started really." The two exited the tent and walked across the mud and grass beneath them. The military vehicles running all over the park had long since turned the normally trimmed grass into muddy sludge. Tails and Knuckles stepped carefully, so as not to plant a foot in a particularly sticky area.

Tails folded his arms together, looking at the ground. He wasn't looking forward to the next fight with those two. "It's not going to be easy as it was last time to bring Metal Sonic to the good side. The same will go for Sonic."

"Yeah?"

"Robotnik said he's prepared this time for me trying to bring out the good side of Sonic's personality in his robots. That means I'll have to do extra work to get around the programming blocks he's put into Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic."

As Tails spoke about that, Knuckles recalled the TV broadcast they'd gotten earlier on at the start of this incident. "That makes sense…but how are you gonna know what you're going to have to work around when the time comes?"

"I'll just have to improvise. It's going to take longer to dig into their programming than it did with the first Metal Sonic. Probably way longer." The fox didn't look too sure about the answer he provided. Seemed there were quite a few unknowns in that.

Knuckles didn't like that. Tails usually always had a good answer for most questions. Him not having a decent answer wasn't a good sign. "How much time you think?" Knuckles listened intently, waiting for the answer and dreading it at the same time.

The fox seemed to be trying to recall the fight against the first Metal Sonic "Last time it took me about five minutes to hack into Metal Sonic's brain. But this time…who knows? Now Robotnik knows what I'm planning to do, so it could take over half an hour. Maybe longer."

Knuckles mouth dropped open. He looked like someone who'd just been smacked right in the gut with a baseball bat. "How are we supposed to hold them off for an entire half hour while you're trying to hack into them? Not to mention, I doubt Robotnik's going to let those two leave you alone while you're trying to break into their minds."

Tails sighed. "I don't know yet Knuckles… I need to figure something out."

Knuckles' eyes widened a bit. Usually the fox was well prepared for almost any crisis, always finding some way out that nobody else would think of. If this rattled him, they were really in big trouble. "You better do it quick then. We don't know how long Robo's going to stay quiet like this. Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic could be on their way to the next city by now."

"I know…" Tails frowned a little too. Looked like he didn't want to be reminded. Knuckles felt a bit embarrassed bringing it up because of that.

They went into the tent they'd slept in last night. The bunks were still there, but Tails had set up a large table at the back of the structure. On it sat a variety of tools, like screwdrivers, power drills, and such. A collection of screws, nails, and metal plates accompanied the devices. The blue glow of a computer's screen illuminated the inside of the tent.

However, Tails focused his attention on the device sitting on the middle of the table. While it was unfinished, it looked kind of like the shell of a small laptop. A small hard drive could be seen inside it, and a battery for a power source, but little else. The thing measured only a few inches wide, and didn't fold out more than two inches. There was also a place on the bottom where two straps could be fitted, so Tails could wear it on his arm.

"Crap…" Knuckles didn't like the look of the computer as it was now. He ran a hand across the thing. "You've still got a way to go."

"Yeah…this reprogrammer is far from finished." Tails looked back at the thing. Knuckles couldn't help but notice the fox seemed weary. His eyes were only half open, and he yawned a bit. Looked like Tails was running low on energy.

Knuckles took that as his cue that it'd be better if he allowed Tails to focus his remaining energy on this project. "In that case, I think I'll leave you alone and let you work."

"Thanks." Tails spoke softly, the echidna's presence secondary to him now. But Knuckles didn't mind. Tails really had to get going, before Robotnik decided to launch another attack. The fox needed to take as much of an advantage from this free time as he could. Tails walked over to the computer and started typing in commands, as he connected a cord to the metallic box inside the "laptop's" frame. Knuckles walked back out of the tent. He wondered what he'd do, now that Tails was busy. The echidna didn't have anybody else he knew who he could talk to in the camp. Perhaps he'd just take a walk.

As he started to leave for another area of the camp, Knuckles heard a truck pull up in front of their. The echidna turned around to see some kind of flatbed with black sacks on the back. He briefly thought they were body bags, but then noticed they were too small. Someone in a soldier's uniform (apparently a female) stepped out on the passenger's side, and walked to a nearby trash can. She took some more black sacks out of it and dumped them on the flatbed.

_Oh…soldiers on garbage duty. Nothing to worry about then. _

The echidna turned around, just as he heard the truck driving up the street of tents towards him. The flatbed went on by, splashing up mud puddles here and there, before it stopped at another set of tents ahead of Knuckles to collect their garbage as well. Knuckles moved to walk by it.

A sharp pain coursed through his neck, and he cried out. Instinctively the echidna tore out whatever had stuck into his body. When Knuckles brought his hand around, he saw a dart-like object tipped with a purple liquid. He turned around, and standing behind him was a man in a soldier's uniform, draped in a raincoat.

_No wait…I see red glowing eyes, and a robotic dog face. Redrum…_

Before Knuckles could throw a punch or do anything else, he closed his eyes and went unconscious.

**Several hours later, at Canma's hideout**

Tails had no idea what happened earlier. He'd just been working on his device, when a lance of pain shot through his arm. He whirled around to see Canma behind him. However, before he could scream for help or attack her, he'd slipped unconscious. She must have injected him with some kind of sleeping agent. And thus, he'd been unconscious for the last several hours. Finally though, it was time for him to wake up.

He could feel warmth on his back as he came back to consciousness. Opening his eyes, he saw he was asleep on a wooden bench, with sunlight streaming in through a window nearby. The sunlight shined on his back, which explained the warmness. Tails sat up on his bench, sizing up his surroundings. Stone walls on three sides, bars on the last side, a window in the wall, torches flickering on the wall outside the bars, and…

_No way!_

All of his gear for making his reprogrammer lay on the cot on the other side of the cell, in addition to a supply of batteries to ensure he could continue his work for a long time. Tails went over to it, wondering why Canma had let him keep this stuff after locking him up. Come to think of it…why _had _she locked him up? All he was doing was keeping her safe by saving the world from Metal Sonic and roboticized Sonic. She should just let him continue his work. What'd she have to gain by doing this to him?

"You awake in there?" The voice called out from the right side of his cell, on the other side of the wall. It sounded familiar somehow, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. However, it suddenly came back to him. "Nail! That you?"

"Yep…" Nail gave out a little sigh.

Now this was really getting strange. Canma sure did have a strange taste in people to lock up. Tails knew Canma didn't have any quarrel with him, and Nail didn't either. "Why're you Canma's prisoner too? I don't get it."

"Pssh… I don't know." He sounded really annoyed by the whole situation. "We were going to try to blow up the lab where Robotnik keeps Metal Sonic and roboticized Sonic, but then she went psycho during the mission and knocked me out. Now Canma's used me as a hostage so she could get Redrum to do some kind of mission with her."

Tails blinked. That sounded familiar… He put two and two together with Canma showing up at his tent. "Did that involve capturing me?"

"I don't know… Maybe. She didn't give me any details about what she was going to do." Again, he sounded rather pissed off about the whole situation. The older fox didn't seem to like being in the dark one little bit.

Speaking of being in the dark, Tails looked back at his equipment. He too was trying to formulate theories on why Canma would capture him, and yet let him keep his equipment. "You know what's weird? She let me keep all my gear for making my reprogramming device."

There was silence for a moment, but then Nail broke out into laughter. "That sounds familiar. Same thing as last time I'm guessing? You're going to try to bring Metal and Sonic back to the good side with it? I heard all about it on the news the first time you fought Metal. Real smart move, I'd say."

Tails smiled a little at that. He turned back to the business at hand though. "That's the plan. But it's no good if I'm locked up in here so I can't go after them."

Rather than getting disheartened though, Nail's voice actually took on a more positive tone. He started speaking faster too. "Come on, I've got faith in you and Knuckles. If you can fight entire robot armies alone, then I'm sure you can escape from one psycho purple bitch who's got no idea what she's doing."

Tails laughed. Looked like he had a bit of a fan in Nail. But mentioning Knuckles made him realize something. Tails hadn't heard the echidna say anything since he was locked up in here. "Hey…is Knuckles here too?"

"I don't think so. They only brought in you, as far as I could tell. Looks like they've got him somewhere else, just like they did with Redrum."

Tails raised an eyebrow at that, although he wasn't sure what he was supposed to think of it. Then he looked back at his reprogramming equipment. "Well…I think I'll keep working on my device while we're waiting. Maybe I can think of a way to get out of here and find those two while I'm at it."

"You do that then. I'll try to think of something too." Tails heard the sound of Nail laying back down on his bed. The younger fox picked up his tools, and resumed his work.

However, no more than a minute later, a heavy metal door screeched open at the front of the cell block. Following that, Tails heard the noise of squeaky wheels. He moved towards the bars to see what it was.

A stretcher-type cart appeared, with Canma pushing in Knuckles on it. The vixen had clearly anticipated Knuckles' enormous strength, as he was covered from head to toe almost all over in lots of leather straps and chains with many locks. A gag covered his mouth so that he couldn't speak either. Knuckles looked silently over at Tails, and the echidna seemed slightly ashamed, as if he hated being in this kind of position. Normally he was the one throwing his weight around and intimidating people, and to be tied up like that made him feel like crap. Knuckles didn't look to be hurt…but Tails didn't know how long it would stay that way.

After placing the cart against the wall, right where Tails would have a good view of it, Canma turned around to face Tails. She put on a most devilish smile. "Hello, little fox boy. I hear you're the one who made the first Metal Sonic good again, am I right?"

Tails thought about not answering for a minute. However, he supposed it was pointless. His heroism had been all over the news and everyone knew about it. So, he responded. "Yes."

"Good. That's why you're here." She sounded quite businesslike, as the vixen began pacing around in front of the bars. "I want you to do something similar for me." Tails frowned. He had no idea what she wanted, but he bet it wasn't anything good. "I want you…to reprogram Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic with that device of yours. Except, I want it made to where they target and kill only humans."

Tails' mouth fell wide open. Was she serious? They'd be killing off nearly one third of the planet's population if they did that. "No way! I'm not going to help you on that! I only want to stop Robotnik! That's it!"

Canma didn't seem phased by the remarks, as she gently knelt down in front of the cell, a bit like a loving parent would with a small child. Which kind of fit, considering Canma was old enough to be Tails' mother. She even spoke like a parent to a child. "Come now… It's such a great idea and you know it. Robotnik is the reason you're in such anguish over the loss of your best friend. And who was the one who produced him? Why..it was the humans that did it! Don't you want to get back at them for making such a horrible monster?"

The contrast of the caring parent tone with what Canma was saying really creeped Tails out. It didn't feel right at all. Tails shook his head no at Canma's question. "No, I don't want to do it! You can't judge an entire race based on what just one person did!"

Canma frowned, clearly looking a bit peeved that Tails didn't want to listen to her message. "Believe me, it's not just Robotnik. They've destroyed my village, and they've destroyed us culturally as well. Why, sometimes I have a hard time telling us apart these days!" The vixen stood up, and moved to where she could face Nail and Knuckles in addition to Tails.

"Just think about my idea for a moment, all of you. Can you imagine how glorious it could be when all the humans are gone again, and it's just us Freedomians? We'll own our own planet once more, and we can do whatever we want. The humans will go away, and we can restore the old order. No more Robotnik, no more greedy human businessmen and politicians taking advantage of us, and no more war, just like before they cane here so long ago."

"At the expense of hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths." Nail emphasized the word 'civilian', his voice laced with its own lethal edge, like Canma's had been before. "People who's only mistake was making their home on our planet. People who have nothing to do with businessmen, politicians, the human military, or Robotnik. You think it's fair to kill them along with those you want to destroy?"

The vixen snapped her head towards Nail. "Of course I do Nail!" Her voice was laced with disbelief. It was like she expected them all to believe what she was saying, like it was common sense or something. "All humans are a plague. Do you know why they're out here? I've heard they've virtually destroyed their own planet, because of what they do in the pursuit of wealth and power. That's why they're here. They need a new place to pollute because there's nowhere left to do it on Earth."

Tails knew for a fact that was incorrect. "This isn't the only planet they've colonized. There's others out there, lifeless ones they could pollute. Besides, they've given us stuff that's made our lives so much easier, like computers."

"I've done just fine without their technology most of my life," Canma glared at Tails. "So does everyone else in Tneicna. In fact, it was technology that ruined my life. Missiles from human warships blew up my home! How do you think I feel about that?" She glared at Tails, and the little fox stood back, unsure of how to come up with a good comeback for that one.

She jumped up from her crouching position, and looked down at Tails with her cold, hard emerald green eyes. It almost looked like tiny green flames burned in them. "Last chance, little kit. Do what I ask, or Knuckles will pay the price instead. I'll slowly torture him to death until I get what I want, and I'll do it all right in front of you."

Tails just stared at her, unsure of what kind of response to make. He looked back at his equipment. The young fox could definitely do what she asked if given enough time, but he didn't want to be responsible for the deaths of all the humans on the planet. But on the other hand, he didn't want Knuckles to die either. Tails just stood there, endlessly thinking and considering what choice to make.

After about a minute, Canma spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. "Well…if you can't make the decision by yourself, I believe I'll have to help you make it." And with that, she walked off. Tails was a bit surprised by the move, but then froze with terror as she heard the sound of her rolling something else into the cell block. This time it was a giant wooden barrel on rollers, totally filled with cold water. When that was in place, Canma tied a rope to one of Knuckles' chains, and threw it over a pulley in the ceiling that Tails hadn't noticed before.

Canma grunted, hoisting the echidna up and over the barrel. Knuckles looked to be in something of a mild panic. While he tried to remain silent and strong, Tails could clearly see his eyes darting about here and there. Tails felt himself growing afraid as well, as he unconsciously edged away from the front of the cell. He could tell where this was about to go. That barrel was big enough for Knuckles to fit inside…

"All right Tails." Canma's voice sounded like poison, like it was about to strike someone dead. "This is what's going to happen now. Whenever you aren't working on that machine I want you to build, I will dump Knuckles in this barrel of water to where his head is submerged. Since he's tied up, he won't be able to get out unless I hoist him back up. I will leave him in the barrel until you decide to start working again."

Tails looked at Canma, his mouth open in shock. Muffled sounds could be heard coming from under Knuckles' gag, as he struggled with the straps all over his body. However, it didn't do a bit of good. All the echidna succeeded in doing was making himself slightly sway a few inches back and forth.

"You bitch!" That was Nail screaming. He grabbed the bars at the front of his cell, rattling them like some kind of enraged zoo animal. "Don't you know what you're doing? These are the only two guys left who can save our world! If you kill one of them, then we're doomed to lose to Robotnik and his hedgehogs! We'll all be robots within months!"

Canma diverted her gaze over towards Nail, and she put on a most lethal-looking smile. "I know Tails won't sacrifice his friend's life. That's one of his weaknesses. He'll do anything to protect those he loves. Very sweet and all, but it makes him so easy to manipulate." Canma looked back at Tails, still with that big grin on her face.

Tails narrowed his eyes, while a soft growl rose up from his mouth. For a second, he actually considered letting Knuckles die, just to spite Canma. However, he quickly realized that the problem Nail brought up was definitely quite real. Tails sure didn't feel like facing both Metal and Sonic at the same time by himself. Like it or not, he'd have to do exactly what Canma predicted he would do, and try to find some way out of using the device he made on the hedgehogs.

She glared at Tails once more, before releasing a little bit of the rope in her hand. Knuckles' feet entered the water, and he shook a bit from the feel of the freezing fluid. "That's enough talking. Get started right now on my machine." She released a good portion of the rope, and Knuckles was now in the water up to his belly. "Or I start drowning Knuckles, right in front of you."

Tails immediately started picking up tools and snapping together his mind reprogrammer. He made surprising progress within a short amount of time. It was amazing what the threat of death for his friend motivated him to do. Tails didn't feel a bit of the tiredness he'd been feeling since the start of this whole ordeal. He felt like he was some kind of robot, merely going through the motions on his own, without feeling anything. The fox didn't even notice when it was starting to get dark outside later on.

In the meantime, Canma tied up the chain Knuckles was on to a nearby wall hook, and sat there on a wooden stool watching Tails work. The intensity in her eyes never seemed go away, no matter how long she sat there. Tails would be impressed if he wasn't so afraid of her and the threats she made. However, long after it had gotten dark outside, she began to waver, her eyes slowly drifting downwards before she jerked them back up again. At one point she let out a long yawn.

However, just a little bit after that, Falc entered the cell block, and stepped over to his sister. When he noticed her eyes were closing, the raccoon pat her shoulder a bit to wake her back up. "You should go to bed. I can keep an eye on them for you tonight."

"Thanks Falc." She said, giving a small smile to her brother. She stood up from her stool and stretched a bit, her purple fur bristling on her body. And then she left the cell block without another word, slamming the door behind her. Falc sat there for a few minutes, curiously eyeing the setup her sister had created in the room. The expression on his face gradually went from curiosity to anger. Finally, the raccoon stood bolt upright, jumping up from his seat. "All right…I think I've seen enough. Tails, you can stop."

Everyone else in the room suddenly fell silent, with all eyes on Falc. Tails just sat there, not really sure if he'd heard the raccoon correctly. "…what?"

"Just look at all this." Falc waved his arms around the entire cell block. He looked rather angry, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then he went back to looking at the prisoners. "She's gone too far. All of you…you were all trying to help to stop Metal Sonic and robot Sonic at one point or another, and yet Canma's got you locked up in here for her scheme to exterminate humanity. It's all about her…all she's wanting to do is get her petty revenge on the humans, just so she can be happy while millions suffer. And she's doing it while you're needed more than anything else to save the planet."

He kicked a bucket with his foot, which made a clattering noise against the stone walls and floor. Tails couldn't believe what he was seeing. Was Falc for real? Nail decided to ask the question Tails was about to ask for him. "What does that mean? You on our side now or something?"

Falc smiled, and nodded. "Hell yes. I'm not helping her any more."

Tails wasn't too sure about Falc's sincerity though. Didn't all this seem kind of…well…farfetched? Once again though, Nail took the initiative. "Well, then let us out of here. And free Knuckles and Tails too." Even though Knuckles still couldn't speak, he nodded his agreement and managed a smile through the gag.

However, that's when Falc's smile faded. "I'm sorry all of you… I really would like to let you out tonight, but Canma never gave me the keys to any of your cells or chains… And I don't know anything about picking locks either. I've been searching this hideout for them while she was watching you, but I've got no idea where she put them."

Again, Nail asked the question first. "Then what do you propose we do?"

Falc folded his arms, pacing back and forth down the cell corridor. Looked like he was pondering what their next move was going to be. "Tails, once you're done, I know she's not planning to let you, Redrum, or Knuckles go. She's going to force Redrum to do the reprogramming, just like she forced him to help kidnap you two…"

A sigh could be heard coming from Nail's cell, before Tails heard the sound of someone kicking the wall. "Goddamnit. Using me as a hostage, once again…"

"I've got one idea…" Falc leaned against the wall as he spoke. "The next time I see Canma with her keys, I'll knock her out and take them from her. She still doesn't suspect my loyalty to her."

This time, Tails asked the question, as he leaned against the bars at the front of his cell. "Couldn't you just tie her up and force her to tell you where the keys are? It seems like it'd be a lot faster that way."

Falc frowned, before shaking his head a little. "It wouldn't work. I know Canma. She's too dedicated to her goals to just surrender information like that. The hiding place of the keys will die with her if I try to wring it out of her." That didn't seem surprising to Tails, when he thought about it. She seemed psycho enough to do something like that. Falc spoke some more. "Although Tails… You'll have to finish your device before she'll bring out the keys. She wants to test it on Redrum first before they start this next mission. How close are you to being done?"

Tails turned back to his machine, and glanced over the program on the monitor he'd installed on the thing since beginning work. He smiled. While being forced to work with Knuckles' life on the line sure wasn't a pleasant experience, it definitely made him work fast and hard. "Almost there. Just give me another hour, and I'll be done."

Falc grinned, giving the young fox a thumbs up. "Good. The sooner the better. Get back to work and finish it fast. All of you need to get back out there and fight Robotnik's forces again." Tails wanted to smile, but he wasn't too sure about Falc's plans. However, it looked to be the only way out right now, and they didn't have time to waste languishing in prison.

The fox returned to his work, and started speeding through it. He actually finished about fifteen minutes earlier than predicted. But in case it was a trick, he put an extra security measure into his program. Since Tails was such a genius, he deliberately made his program so difficult to work with, that only he himself as the program writer would understand it. If Falc really was on Canma's side, and she tried to get Redrum to work the program, he wouldn't be able to do it. Or so he hoped…

In the end, Tails removed a small thumb drive from his desktop computer, before holding it out to Falc through the bars. "All right. It's done now. If Canma wants to test it on Redrum, all she has to do is upload it to him with this.

"Good. I'll get her up right now." Falc took the thumb drive away from Tails, and walked off. The fox felt himself getting a bit anxious. The idea of going along with Falc was a risky one. Could this all be some kind of trick? But on the other hand, they needed to get out of here ASAP. Time was of the essence.

It seemed Nail shared Tails' doubts, as he heard the older fox speaking up. "You think it was a good idea to give him that? We don't exactly know if he's trustworthy. He hasn't given us any definite proof that he's going to do as he says."

Tails shrugged. "It's not like we have many choices right now Nail. We don't have time to waste here."

"But what if he's lying about some things? What if he really does know where the keys are? And all of this is just a trick to get you to work faster on your program? And another thing, his feels almost just like that time you and Sonic trusted Robotnik when he said the Robot Generator was going to blow. I remember seeing all of that detailed on the news. Again, you just took him at his word without checking to see if he was lying to you." Nail really seemed to be getting irritable about the whole situation.

Tails almost felt bad about trusting Falc now. There were some frightening similarities between the two situations. However, he had gotten them some insurance with his ideas on the program. "Don't worry. I made that program hard to work with on purpose so that only I can use it. If Falc's trying to trick us, the plan'll hit a brick wall when Redrum tries to work through my program."

"Really?" Nail sounded most relieved. Then he chuckled a bit. Knuckles tried to laugh too through his gag. "All right. Sounds cool. Let's find out what happens then." Tails heard the sound of the older fox jumping back on his cot.

Twenty minutes later, someone came into the cell block again. Tails heard two sets of footsteps, and one of them clanked. It sounded like metal on stone. Canma's and Falc's footsteps sure didn't sound like that... There was also the sound of something being dragged along the floor. Redrum, completely unbound, stepped into view. Behind him, Falc moved into view…dragging Canma on the floor behind him. She was covered from head to toe in chains and ropes, with a gag in her mouth. It looked remarkably similar to how Knuckles was tied up. He also had the keys in hand. Tails couldn't believe it. The raccoon had been telling the truth! "Mission complete." He grinned.

A few minutes later, Tails and Nail were out of their cells, Knuckles was out of his restraints….and Canma was locked up in the cell Nail had occupied a few minutes ago. Their positions had been completely reversed. Nail, in particular seemed very surprised with this turn of events. "I don't believe it. You were telling the truth…"

Falc just laughed. "Of course I was. I couldn't just let my sister go and murder humanity like this. There's no way I could live it down."

Redrum gave the raccoon a healthy slap on the back. Meanwhile, Canma just sat in the cell and glared at all of them, like she hated them all with all of her heart. She especially took the time to give some harsh glances to Falc. The raccoon frowned back at her. "I'm sorry sister. But you weren't leaving me any choice. I don't want to help you exterminate a race, no matter what they've done to our world." Canma continued to glare at him, grumbling under her gag since she couldn't speak out loud with that in her mouth. Meanwhile, Falc continued talking. "Come to think of it though…I know you're going to just break out of your restraints once we're gone and cause more trouble. You had high marks on your lockpicking courses. Even if we called the authorities here, you'd probably be long gone before they arrived. I don't want to do it, but I have to do something more permanent to make sure you stop this crusade."

He suddenly drew out Nail's handgun, and pointed it at Canma square between the eyes. Before anyone had time to blink, he fired. Canma didn't make a sound as she collapsed backwards on the stone floor, with a splotch of red on her face. Tails gasped in fright, as he saw blood pouring down her face. The kit was frozen to the spot, totally unable to move a muscle as he looked at Canma's dead corpse.

But Falc didn't stop there. He fired several more shots, not stopping until the gun clicked empty. She was surely dead now, and there was no disputing it. The raccoon silently passed the gun back to Nail. The older fox was in a state of shock, gazing back and forth between Falc and Canma, as if unable to believe he'd just seen Falc do what he did. Meanwhile, the raccoon took off down the hall towards the doorway.

Everybody else was unable to move for a moment, as they stood transfixed by Canma's corpse, and what had just happened right before their eyes. Even Redrum, who'd been a serial killer before he was roboticized, seemed taken aback by the brutal murder. "Let's go…" Falc spoke in a muted voice, as he opened the door. "That stolen Robotnik ship is still outside, and I've already got all of your stuff on board. We need to hurry."

Slowly…they left one at a time, but Tails was last. While he didn't like Canma any for threatening to kill Knuckles, Tails didn't want to see her go this way. He wanted her brought to justice. After one more long, hard look, he left as well, leaving Canma Neuyan's corpse alone, imprisoned to rot in her own jail.


	8. The Third Battle

**Chapter 8: The Third Battle**

**September 9th, 2316 – 4:30 AM – Lissof Forest, Tneicna**

Guided by Falc, the group moved solemnly out of the hideout. While Nail was curious to see what it looked like, he didn't care much now. They walked down a natural cave corridor, lit by lanterns hanging from the ceiling and lined by a few doors.

It was a rather sad looking place to leave a body, considering it was little more than a hole in the ground turned into a crude living place for a bounty hunter. A bounty hunter who'd just been brutally murdered at the hands of her brother. If there was any doubt in anybody's mind that Falc truly was on their side, it had been totally blown away now. However, this wasn't the way Nail wanted to see him show what side he was on. He stared at Falc hard. It just didn't feel right for someone like him to execute his own sister, especially since he seemed like such a nice guy when Nail had talked to him before.

Within moments, they reached what looked like a wooden cellar door. Falc opened it up ahead of them, and now they were in a small clearing at the base of a cliff. Tall trees lined the other three sides of the clear space, while a dark blue sky hung above. A lightening to the east hinted at approaching daylight.

In the center sat the stolen Robotnik ship. The gray craft had the basic shape of an air scoop, the kind you'd see on the hoods of sporty cars, only two small wings extended out of the sides. Everyone moved towards the hatchway at the back of the craft. Nobody spoke a word to each other. All was quiet on board the ship as Tails piloted it away from Canma's hideout, with everyone seated on board.

In the back, Falc and Nail ended getting seats that ran along the port and starboard sides of the ship, so that they faced each other. Nail still couldn't take his eyes off of Falc. The reality of Canma getting executed like that still hadn't fully sunk in yet. The raccoon stared back for a while, both of them just looking at each other quietly. Eventually though, Falc broke the silence.

"I had to do it." Falc spoke as if he were reading Nail's mind. His eyes narrowed, as if he were deadly serious on what he was talking about. "I know how determined my sister was. Nothing I've ever did seemed to stop her from dedicating her life to hating humanity. If I didn't kill her now, she'd try to do something like this again later. Better for one person to die now than for many to die later."

Nail blinked. Did he really view what he'd done that coldly? Nail knew he could never execute his own sister so instantaneously, even if he knew it had to be done. "But she was your sister—"

Falc raised a hand, cutting off Nail. "Don't think I enjoyed doing it, because I didn't. I hated every moment of what I did in that cell block just now. I tried to save her many times over the course of her life from this path that she chose, but she never budged. However, I'm sure her death is a small price to pay now to avoid catastrophes in the future." The raccoon let out a little sigh, before he just stared at the wall next to Nail. Falc idly tapped his foot on the floor. He seemed to be trying to just forget about what he'd just done. Silence prevailed for a few more moments, before Falc decided to speak again. "Anyway. Let's put that behind us for now. There will be plenty of time to think about this later. For now, we have to stop Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic."

Nail couldn't help but notice that while Falc and Canma held different viewpoints about humans, their ways of achieving their goals seemed to be quite similar. Both of them used very brutal, very quick methods. With Canma, it was her idea of having Metal Sonic and Mecha Sonic exterminate humanity, but with Falc it was the quick, efficient murder of his sister. The fox didn't feel comfortable at all sitting so close to him.

However, thinking of Metal Sonic and Sonic brought back the context of the situation in Nail's mind. Nail had been so overwhelmed by what he witnessed Falc do, that he'd almost forgotten why he did it in the first place. The older fox turned towards Tails, who sat in the pilot's chair at the front of the ship. "Tails…is there a radio on this thing? Maybe you could get in touch with the army and see what's happened since we were gone."

"Sounds like a good idea." Tails sounded rather hushed and quiet. Seemed he didn't feel a lot like talking, after what he'd just seen. Regardless, he started pressing buttons on the console in front of him. After a few moments, he had a connection established to General Salt's tent, back in Carlboron. "General Salt? Can you hear me?"

"Yes Tails!" Salt shouted. He sounded rather energetic, not to mention relieved. Nail heard an audible sigh of relief. "Where have you been? You and Knuckles just disappeared from the camp a couple days ago without a trace!"

"Got captured by…a psycho fox and taken to Tneicna." Knuckles hesitated after saying that. He hesitated for a moment, to decide how he'd phrase what happened, then sighed, as if giving up. "Anyway…that's not important now. We'll talk more about it later. Can you tell us what's happened since we were gone?"

"Well, surprisingly, we've not heard a peep from Robotnik since the attack on Carlboron." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Robotnik's robots must have really been banged up quite a bit from that last fight you had with them."

But then…there was the sound of somebody running into the general's tent. Nail could hear indistinguishable shouting on the other end. Knuckles grabbed for the microphone and shouted into it. "General! What's going on over there?"

"Disregard my last message!" General Salt sounded a lot more frantic now. "We've just received word that Metal Sonic and roboticized Sonic are headed for Tneicna right now! Their destination seems to be…Nedlo! The capital city!"

A chill ran down Nail's back, upon hearing the words 'Nedlo'. "Oh shit! That's where Carrie lives!" Carrie was Nail's long lost sister. During the mission where he'd been assigned to capture the Sonic Unit, he found out she was now friends with them. They'd seen each other for the first time in eleven years that day. A terrible shame it had to be under such awkward circumstances. Regardless, he'd never get to meet her again if they didn't hurry. Nail jumped up from his seat and rushed towards the cockpit. He looked over Tails' shoulder at the display. "How far away are we?!"

Tails pressed some buttons, before he brought up a map on a nearby computer screen. A yellow dot highlighted their coordinates on a map of Tneicna, while Nedlo showed up as red. The young fox's eyes widened. "We're about two hours away from the town. And that's if we fly full speed all the way too."

"That's supposed to be how long it'll take for them to get there!" General Salt added. "You've got to hurry!"

"Then get us there already! I don't want my sister to die!" Nail practically screamed into Tails' ear, visibly shaking the younger fox up quite a bit. Quickly, Tails applied the afterburners, and the ship was rocketing straight for Nedlo. Ready or not, it was time for the next clash with the dreaded metal hedgehogs.

During the trip there, they devised a plan for how to deal with the situation.

Tails and Knuckles would focus on defending the city from the metal hedgehogs with Tails' electric weapons, like they did last time with Carlboron. Meanwhile, Nail and Falc would go rescue Carrie, while Redrum would stay with the ship and make sure their transportation stayed intact during the battle.

Tails also revealed he'd be able to try out the reprogrammer this time. He'd been working on the program to make the good side of Sonic's personality come out, in addition to the work he'd been doing for Canma. It wasn't that hard. He just had to change some values on Canma's program here and there.

Since all of them knew what they were going to do, they immediately set to work once the ship landed in a small park in Nedlo, two hours later. All five of them immediately split up to do their respective duties.

Nail and Falc jumped out of the ship and hurried for the nearby Brenbar Inn, where Carrie worked and lived. Within a minute or so, the building came up in sight. Rosy red walls adorned the exterior, in addition to beautiful flowers in planters on all of the windows, and a squeaky wooden sign above the door with the hotel's name. With the way it was still early morning, the vivid colors of the rising sun made the setting look even more tranquil. It wouldn't be that way for much longer though.

Nail charged right up towards the front door, and pushed down on the handle, but it was locked. A quick glance at the hours painted on the wall next to the door showed the hotel didn't open for customers until 8 am. A growl escaped his mouth. "Dammit! Don't have time for this!" He pounded on the door with his fist, hoping somebody would hear him. Nail was really getting nervous now. The hedgehogs would be here any second. He had to get Carrie out of here right now or they'd both die.

Meanwhile, Falc stepped up to the building beside Nail. "Forget it. Let's try this instead." Falc grabbed a planter from one of the hotel's windows, and then threw it through the same window, shattering the glass into a million pieces. The fox and raccoon jumped through the broken window, being careful not to get cut on the glass shards.

As they stepped inside the dark front lobby, a robin dressed in sleeping robes emerged from a nearby doorway, holding a lit candle. That would be Mr. Olandra, the owner of the hotel and Carrie's boss. His eyes went wide as he recognized Nail from the last time he was here. He screamed at the top of his lungs. "I know you! You tried to capture Sonic and his friends when I saw you here a week ago!"

Nail let out a long sigh. They really didn't have time to fool around with him. "This is different! There's an emergency!" Nail and Falc rushed across the lobby, running around the bird and continuing for the stairs.

However, it seemed the dumb bird was totally ready to fool around with him. He bellowed out behind them. "I'll not have you causing any more trouble here! I've got a guard now!" And then let out a cackling laugh.

_Shit. This is so what I don't need right now. Oh well…if I keep running he shouldn't be any—_

A rhino appeared from the door leading to the stairs…right where they were headed. The tanker top and the pants he had on gave Nail a full view of his rippling muscles. Not to mention, the fox couldn't help but imagine gory images of being impaled on that huge horn above the nose. The rhino grinned, as he towered over two feet above Nail and Falc. He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "These little men giving you any problems sir?" The rhino spoke in a deep husky voice.

Mr. Olandra practically hopped up and down with joy, as he energetically spoke to his guard. "Yes! The fox is a mercenary and a criminal, and I want him and his friend out of here now!" The bird jerked his finger at the two of them like a kid tattle-tailing on another one.

Nail let out another sigh. This just kept getting better and better by the second. Oh well…he had to at least try to talk his way out of this. "I'm telling you, the metal hedgehogs are going to be here any second! You need to get out of the city now!"

The bird just laughed, and a second later the rhino jumped in. "Do you think we're gonna listen to your lies?"

_Idiots, the both of you! You're going to get us all killed! Oh well…I didn't wanna do this, but you aren't leaving me any choice! _

Nail drew his handgun and fired a shot at the rhino. He deliberately fired so that the bullet would narrowly miss him. Hopefully, that might scare the guard into letting him go by. Instead, it had the opposite effect. The rhino growled, and went into a full-on charge directly at Nail. He bellowed out as he came closer. "You dare to pull a gun on me like that?!"

Nail tried to jump out of the way, but one of the rhino's fists caught him in the stomach. The fox yowled in pain, as he was sent flying into one of the lobby's columns. Nail could swear he hit it so hard he could actually feel the thing move a bit. All of a sudden, he found it very difficult to move. The fox tried to climb to his feet, but the rhino basically knocked the wind out of him with that punch. The huge Freedomian towered over him, lifting up a huge fist as he grinned.

But before the rhino could make the blow, the end of a whip wrapped around his arm. Both Nail and the rhino looked over to see Falc straining to pull the rhino back with his whip. "Leave him alone!" The rhino just laughed, as he pulled on the whip with his arm, dragging Falc in closer. The raccoon was clearly no match for the larger animal in terms of strength. Falc had the good sense to let go of the weapon as he got closer.

Now that he had the whip, the rhino decided to try his hand at using it on Falc. He threw his arm back, and swung it towards the raccoon. However…he accidentally cracked the whip right next to his ear on that swing…which caused him to yowl in pain from the loud sound. He grabbed for the ear, trying to soothe the pain. Meanwhile, Falc recollected his weapon. "Amateur…" Falc shook his head disapprovingly. "People always try to use a whip like that the first time they've got it in their hands, and that's what happens." The raccoon readied his whip once more, as the rhino regained his composure. "You go on ahead and save your sister. I'll keep him busy."

Nail stared at the rhino nearby, huffing and puffing at the two of them, and then looked back at Falc. The coon definitely looked fit, but nowhere near as burly as the rhino. "Are you sure about this?"

"He's strong, but not too bright. I'll be fine." Falc put on a little smirk, as he twirled the whip around a little bit.

Nail shrugged. At least he wasn't having to fight him, and he supposed he ought to be grateful for that. "Well, be my guest then." Nail rushed into the stairwell and hurried to the top floor, where Carrie had her room. While it only took a minute to get up there and reach Room 320, the run felt like hours. Just as he was about to get to the door…a distant boom could be heard outside. Nail looked out a nearby window, and saw dust clouds rising up from destroyed buildings in the distance.

_The robots…they've started. It won't be long before they get here._

A fresh charge of fear running through his veins, Nail stepped over to Room 320 and started hammering on the door. He felt like the thing was practically vibrating off of its hinges as he pounded it. "Carrie! It's me, Nail! Come on, open up! Robotnik's attacking the city! We gotta get out of here!"

After about a minute, there was a _snick_ as the door unlocked, and a tired-looking white wolf opened the door. Because their parents were two different species, Carrie and Nail had ended up being different species too. Messy blonde hair ran down from her head, touching a nightgown she had on. She looked very tired, but sprang to alertness when she saw her brother there. Now the calm blue eyes practically burned with a blue flame. "Nail…what are you doing here? You've got the nerve to come back here after you tried to capture Sonic?"

Nail sighed.

_Not this crap again..._

This time, he didn't dick around trying to explain the situation. Nail reached out and snatched her hand, dragging her from the room. She tried to pull away to make him let go, but with the fresh fear in his body Nail hardly registered the struggling. "We have to get out of the city right now! Just look out that window over there!"

He pointed at the one he'd just looked through, and the white wolf moved to see for herself. One look at the other buildings crumbling to dust and the two blue blurs swooping about was all she needed to see. "This… It's just like the first time Metal Sonic appeared!" While it was annoying that Nail had to explain the situation over and over again to these people, at least now he could finally get the hell out of here with Carrie. She suddenly went completely compliant, as Carrie followed her brother back down the stairs and into the lobby.

The rhino and Falc were still duking it out, and they'd destroyed much of the room in the process. All the plants were knocked over, and a massive crack could be seen on the fountain in the middle of the room. Water dripped from the basin and made the floor wet. "Falc! I've got her! We can go!"

Mr. Olandra saw Nail with Carrie, and his eyes widened. Turning to the rhino, he barked an order. "Stop that fox! He's trying to kidnap Carrie!"

Nail figured this guy had to be deaf if he couldn't hear what was going on outside the building. Once more, he tried to get him to listen. "I'm telling you we're under attack!"

Carrie joined in, which Nail appreciated. They'd certainly believe her. "He's telling the truth! New Metal Sonics are headed this way!"

As if on cue, one of the hedgehogs actually crashed through the ceiling of the lobby, sending stone and plaster flying everywhere, not to mention a dust cloud. When the smoke cleared, Metal Sonic was hovering there, gazing at all of them with a menacing look. Nail stepped in front of Carrie to defend her, as he drew out his sniper rifle. Meanwhile, Falc turned around to ready his whip. "We've got to go! He'll kill us if we stay here!"

Finally convinced, everyone in the room started following Nail out of the room. When Nail, Falc, and Carrie were just a few steps outside the building, Metal Sonic rocketed out through the building's roof, and smashed through it a few more times. Without its interior structure, the old building could no longer stand. It collapsed into a giant heap of rubble, just in time for Nail to see Mr. Olandra and the rhino get crushed by the falling roof.

Carrie just stood there, transfixed by the sight of the destroyed hotel. She didn't speak or move. Nail couldn't blame her, after hearing Tails and Knuckles explain what her life had been like lately. This wasn't just where she worked; it was her home too. Mr. Olandra also practically became family to her in the two years that she'd worked here. The bird had given her work, and a place to live as well…

After Nail felt she'd gotten an adequate moment of silence, he tugged her arm. "Carrie… We have to go, or we'll die too." The white wolf's head sagged, as she turned around and walked away from the building. Nail and Falc followed after her solemnly. There was no time to mourn Mr. Olandra. Metal Sonic and roboticized Sonic were still on the prowl, looking for more victims. Nail wished they had a radio to contact Redrum with or something.

The odds of getting out of this city on foot didn't look too good, especially considering the earlier explosions had woken up people. Now the populace was starting to flee out of the town in a wild panic, tripping over each other to get out. All around was screaming, crying, and shouting, as the explosions carried on across the city. If only they had some transportation…

Nail blinked. He remembered something, as he reached into a pocket on his vest and pulled out something. It was the key to his truck. Even though Nail hadn't had it for the last few days, he still carried the key around out of habit. Nail didn't feel comfortable without it.

Nail left it behind in this city the last time he had it. He and Redrum needed to abandon the thing so they could steal an airplane and continue to chase after Nack and Canma. The two purple ones were launching a scheme to make off with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles to collect the bogus bounties on them.

That was history now…but if the truck was still here… He whirled around to face his sister. "Carrie, I left my truck here the last time I was in this city. Do you know what was done with it?"

Carrie just stared at Nail blankly, apparently not knowing what he was talking about. But then her eyes widened, like she'd just remembered. "Well… I think the soldiers impounded it over at their barracks." Naturally, she figured where Nail was going with this. "Just follow me there!"

The wolf took the lead, weaving a path through the frightened crowd, as Falc and Nail tailed her. Within a few minutes, they were at the guard station. Nail was afraid he'd have to get past some kind of security, but it looked like that wouldn't be needed. One of the hedgehogs seemed to have destroyed a rock wall surrounding the soldier's compound, and amidst the rubble… Nail saw it. He practically felt like singing the Hallelujah chorus right now. "There it is! Let's get in!"

A layer of dust covered it, and some small pieces of debris sat on the top, but otherwise the large black SUV looked just fine. The fox charged headlong towards the vehicle, switching off the locks with the keyless entry as he approached. He took the driver's seat, while Carrie and Falc squished into the front row with him. "Hang on!" His two passengers hurriedly buckled up in their safety belts. With a twist of the key, the truck roared to life. Nail pulled out of the compound, engaging the four wheel drive so the vehicle could get over the rubble blocking the gap in the compound wall. After that, they were on the street.

But even with transportation, this place was a madhouse, and it would be difficult to drive out of. Nail kept honking his horn, screaming at people running down the street to get out of the way. The fox growled. "This is taking too long…" he said, gripping the steering wheel so tightly the skin under his fur started to turn red. He continued to honk the horn. Then the street started to clear up a bit. People moved to the sides. The fox grimly smiled.

"That's better—" But before he finished, he looked in his rearview mirror. Metal Sonic was flying down the street right towards his car. Nail's eyes widened, and he instinctively jerked the wheel left. Carrie screamed at the top of her lungs, as they crashed right through an empty fruit stand. The front of his car was now covered with a purple tarp and bits of wood. Metal Sonic whooshed right past, but he'd be coming back.

Nail threw the truck in reverse, backing back onto the road. The pieces of wood fell off from the car's hood, although the tarp stayed stuck on the hood. That didn't concern Nail right now though. It didn't block his vision anyway, and it's not like he had time to get out and take it off. He pulled a quick 180, and started heading back down the road the way he'd come.

Again, in his rearview mirror, he saw Metal Sonic attempting another ramming charge. Fortunately though, this time Nail saw a side street he could duck down. He honked his horn, scaring some people who were standing in the way, and swerved. As it turned, the SUV leaned over so far that Nail actually felt it go up on two wheels. He was afraid they were going to roll over for a second, but the wheels slammed back down hard as he completed the turn. And with that, he mashed the gas pedal into the floor. It wouldn't take long for Metal Sonic to catch up again.

Nail spared a moment to look at his two passengers. Carrie and Falc seemed terrified out of their wits, as they had a wide-eyed look at the road flying past. Furthermore, they were too busy checking his mirrors to talk to him. Nail turned back to look at the road…just in time to see a huge crater appear in the middle of the street, followed up by a big dust cloud.

Nail slammed down on the brakes, sending the truck to a screeching halt. As the dust cleared, he saw roboticized Sonic standing there…waiting for them. Immediately, Nail threw the truck in reverse, swerving around in another180, before he again went back the way he'd come. However…this time Metal came from the opposite direction. The two had the truck boxed in from both sides.

Nail glanced around…looking for a solution to this problem. He noticed a small alleyway off to the side. It looked pretty tight, and he was driving this large truck. The fox didn't think his car would make it.

_Better than getting sheared in half by metal hedgehogs. _

"Hang on!" He swerved towards the alleyway. With a loud _crunch_, the truck came to a dead halt at the front of the alley, as the corner of one of the buildings caved in. After recovering from the collision, Nail pressed the accelerator. All he succeeded in doing was producing smoke from the tires. Looked like the front fender was hung up on one of the alley walls, which meant they were too wide.

Nail felt fear pulse through his body, as he tried to work the gear shifter back into reverse. However, his hands fumbled awkwardly around the stick, and his movements made him feel like he was trying to do this while his body was mired in sand. Another glance into the mirror showed the two hedgehogs standing right behind his truck.

Instinctively, he shifted into reverse and backed up, slamming into the two of them. However, instead of running them over…Nail felt the back end of the vehicle tilt upward. He also wasn't getting any traction on his rear wheels.

_Oh god…they've picked up the back end! _

Now the front end was rising up as well. Looked like they were getting ready to throw it, and Nail didn't wanna be in the truck when that happened. But before he could reach the door latch, the truck flew through the air, end over end. The outside world looked like a swirl of colors and shapes flying past, as Carrie screamed her heart out in his ear. And then they slammed into the ground, glass breaking and cutting across his skin, as he and his three passengers slammed into each other and everything else in the vehicle.

Finally, the ride mercifully came to an end, with the vehicle amazingly stopping on its wheels. However, not one pane of glass remained intact. The doors were all dented inwards and covered with many bumps. The roof buckled inward from the impacts. But at least Nail was still alive.

Regardless, he felt like he'd just been put in a sack and beaten with a baseball bat. He had bruises all over, and as he put a hand across his head it came back wet from blood. His arms had plenty of cuts themselves. Then he turned over to look at Carrie. She also had a large cut across her arm, the nightgown she had on soaking in blood. Falc looked to be in a similar condition.

While they'd survived the rollover, this wasn't much better. If they didn't get out of this truck in the next few seconds, the metals were going to come over and kill them. Nail risked a glance out the side of the car, and wished he hadn't looked. Metal Sonic and Sonic were right there…walking towards the truck. The fox looked down, trying to unbuckle himself out of the seatbelt. His fingers felt like they were made of gelatin as he tried to find the release button, fear causing him to make stupid mistakes.

But then he saw two people drop down between the truck and the robots. The fox did a double take, scarcely able to believe that Lady Luck had finally decided to smile on him. "Tails! Knuckles!" Their electric weapons gleamed in the early sunrise, in addition to Tails' reprogrammer.

"Sorry Nail! We're having a tough time here!" The fox raised up his hand cannon and fired a volley of laser bolts at Metal Sonic, while Knuckles tried to punch roboticized Sonic again with his electric gloves. In both instances, an electromagnetic shield appeared around the robots, blocking the damage. "Damn! It didn't work! Robotnik upgraded them again!"

Metal slashed his clawed fist across Knuckles' face, the echidna only just barely ducking down and avoiding the blow. He stopped for a moment to scream at the young fox. "Any ideas Tails?!"

Meanwhile, Tails found himself in a stare down with his roboticized friend. "No! I can't use the reprogrammer! We need a distraction!"

Nail thought about offering one…but that would be suicidal. His guns didn't work at all on the metal hedgehogs, and he was nowhere near as fast or as strong as Tails or Knuckles. He didn't know what to do…

All of a sudden, Nail realized he could hear the sound of jet engines…lots of jet engines. He leaned out through the broken driver's side window of the car and looked up. A horde of jet fighters and cargo planes cruised through the sky overhead. At first he thought they were reinforcements from Robotnik…but then he saw the Freedomian Army emblem on the side of the vehicles. He practically jumped for joy.

The cargo planes started dropping tanks, which then gently floated to the ground via parachute. Meanwhile, helicopters flew over to assist. One of the pilots started screaming over a bullhorn. "Tails! Knuckles! Stand aside! We're gonna blast them!" The two didn't need to be told twice. Neither did Nail. Looked like the truck could still move a bit…if just barely…as Nail pressed the gas pedal. The wheels had been knocked out of alignment by the impact, so the car bounced up and down as it moved out of the way.

After they were out of the way, the helicopters unleashed a hailstorm of bullets from their miniguns on the two hedgehogs. Nail watched in awe at the scene. There were so many shots that the ground around the two hedgehogs was being chewed up by the lead. It wasn't long before they were standing in a small crater. The robots raised up their arms to block. Even though Nail couldn't see much visible damage on them, the relentless storm of lead totally prevented them from moving.

"Tails!" An APC rumbled around the corner. In a hatch on top of the vehicle was General Salt. The aging dog looked absolutely fiery now, as the mingun on the APC focused in on the hedgehogs as well. "Do it! Use your reprogramming device now! Hurry while we've still got them under fire!"

Nail thought his ears were going to explode from the sheer amount of bullets and explosions. Regardless though, as he clamped down on his ears, a smile crossed his face. This might be it…this just might be the end of it all. All Tails had to do was fire up that reprogrammer and finish before the bots got loose…


	9. Battered, but not Broken

**Chapter 9: Battered, but not Broken **

**September 10th, 2316 – 8:30 AM – ****Nedlo, Tneicna**

Tails felt excitement race through his body, as he watched the robots get pounded by tons of hot lead from all the army vehicles in the area. While they didn't appear to be taking any damage, the storm of bullets rendered them practically immobile. This might be it. Tails might finally get Sonic back, here and now, and this nightmare would end forever. With his pulse pounding, he booted up the reprogrammer computer and searched for a connection into Metal's and Sonic's systems.

And then his face fell. The excitement disappeared immediately, replaced by dread and fear. The fox chewed his lip nervously as he started in, mashing keys as fast as he could. Even if it didn't look like he'd make it, he'd probably never get a better chance to bring Sonic back to his normal self. Apparently, Knuckles couldn't help but notice the look on Tails' face. "What's wrong?!" He screamed loudly, trying to be heard over all of the shooting.

With his brain focused entirely in on breaking Robotnik's programming, the young fox only barely registered the presence of the echidna. He stammered out an explanation as fast as he could, between bursts in typing. "I-I'll n-need a few minutes here Knuckles!"

"A few minutes?! They'll be out of ammo before then!" While Knuckles made a valid point, the metals just did something that rendered the problem moot anyway. Applying extra thrust, Metal Sonic finally managed to break free of the bullet barrage, and promptly "teleported" out of sight with his superior speed. After that, it was like the helicopters were spontaneously exploding all over the sky. Metal zipped back and forth between them so fast in his destruction spree, that only a faint blue blur could be seen. And, you could only spot it if you had fast eyes and were looking very hard for it.

To make matters worse, Sonic also managed to get loose, thanks to the dramatic reduction in the quantity of bullets being fired, and joined his counterpart in the destruction. That doubled the damage being done to the army. Even more explosions rippled across the sky and the ground. General Salt picked up his megaphone and screamed into it. While he'd been at least somewhat calm before, the guy looked absolutely frantic now. "Corner them! Corner them again!" And then he turned back to Tails "Tails! Keep working! We can only hold them off for so long! Don't stop! This is the only way we'll win!"

"Holy shit…" That was Nail talking. Seemed he'd decided to get out of his car to get a closer look. Knuckles had to agree with him. The entire army out here had just put themselves on the chopping block to save the planet. Knuckles found himself amazed that the troops could truly be this dedicated.

Even more helicopters and tanks showed up, struggling to replace the ones that fell just seconds earlier. They attempted time and time again to form up so the hedgehogs locked up in place from the bullets. However, the hedgehogs were wise to that game now, and simply moved far too fast for people to get into formation. At best, a lucky stream of fire from one or two army vehicles managed to hold them off for just a few seconds, before they broke free again and destroyed what vehicle was shooting at them.

Meanwhile, Tails could hardly believe he was doing what he was doing right now. The fox continued to enter command after command into his program to break Robotnik's programming, even as the destruction unfolded in the sky above. It took every nerve in his body to not jump into the fight and try to save the army troops. As much as he hated to see all these people die, he knew only more were going to perish later if they didn't stop the hedgehog threat right now. He risked a glance up…and saw that Metal had chosen another target. General Salt's APC. Before he had time to take a step, Metal sheared right through the vehicle, blowing it up and sending shrapnel all over the street.

The young fox instantly forgot what he was doing and rushed over towards the flaming wreckage. However, someone grabbed him roughly by the shoulders before he could get any farther. Tails turned around, and saw Nail standing there, glaring at him. The older fox immediately crouched down on his knees and screamed in the younger fox's face. "Leave him! He's dead! Just keep working or we all die!"

Tears streaked down Tails' cheeks, as he looked between Nail, and General Salt's destroyed vehicle. Despite the situation, the young kit found himself paralyzed. Never before had he faced such an extreme, demanding moment in his life. That hard gaze never wavered from Nail, as he continued to stare Tails down. Where did he get it from? Had he just witnessed a lot more death in his life previously? Frustrated that Tails wasn't working, Nail shook him. "Come on… You can do it Tails! There's nobody else! It's all up to you!"

The sky appeared almost empty. Virtually every aircraft that had been sent here was destroyed. In just another moment or so, Metal and Sonic wouldn't have anything left to distract them, and if the hedgehogs weren't turned good now they'd have all died in vain. Tails was _not _going to let that happen. Not after the sacrifices they made. Once again, Tails resumed hammering more commands into his device.

Not a few moments later, everything fell silent. The silence came so suddenly that everyone looked up in the sky, bewildered by the sudden cutoff of all the shooting and explosions. Tails blinked. Had he done it? Had he finally gotten through to those two robots? Was it over? All of them looked up at the sky, as if waiting for some kind of god to part the clouds with a ray of sunshine and give them an answer.

The shrieking sound of twin jet engines pierced the sky. Metal's and Sonic's engines. Everyone looked up, and saw the two blue blurs streak across the sky and away from the city. Tails felt an icy hand grip his body, as he watched them leave. They weren't turning around and coming back. With a single-minded purpose and a course as straight as an arrow, they shot straight away from the destruction of Nedlo. That could only mean one thing. Robotnik realized what Tails was doing, and he had called back the robots. This battle was completely in vain.

Even though he knew it was impossible to do anything now, Tails whirled his tails and took off in the sky, chasing after the robots. They'd easily escape him with their speed, not to mention Tails was as tired as hell between the battle and not getting a decent night's sleep for days. However, he just couldn't stand the thought of letting those two get away, after so many had died to try to stop them. Someone else grabbed him by the shoulders. This time it was Knuckles, chasing behind with his gliding power. Tails tried to shake the echidna off of his back, but Knuckles definitely had more strength going for him. "Tails, I'm angry too, but it's over now. We won't catch them. We lost."

The words 'we lost' stuck the young fox in the chest like a knife. Whoever said words can never hurt had no idea what he was talking about. Reluctantly, he slowly drifted back towards the ground, collapsing into the middle of the street. He cried his eyes out on the ground, right there, amidst all the rubble and the chaos. All that death and chaos had been for nothing, and more would now follow later.

* * *

"Goddamn…" Nail sat on the curb, surveying all the destruction around him. While the fighting stopped, he could still hear the pops and hisses of fires all around him, not to mention the screaming and crying out from wounded people everywhere. This place had gone from ancient paradise to hell in just a manner of minutes. And Tails had been so close to making sure this nightmare finally ended, only to have it slip through their fingers right at the end. Nail had no idea what Tails was going through right now, but he felt certain it was suffering he'd probably never feel in a lifetime.

Nail heard footsteps nearby, and felt someone's shadow fall across him. Looking up, he noticed it was Carrie, still wearing that bloody, dirty nightgown, with cuts all over her body from the crash. The two just stared at each other quietly for a moment, before Carrie sat down next to Nail. For a while, nothing but silence went between the two, as they just stared at a crumbled building across the street. He couldn't blame his sister for her silence. This place was her home, and now everything had been taken away. "Augustine?" Nail snapped his head to his wolf sister, surprised that she'd decided to speak first, and using his full, actual first name no less. Getting over his surprise, he leaned in close.

"What is it, sis?" 'Sis'…when was the last time he'd called her that? When they were little kids? He hardly believed he'd said something like that.

She didn't appear to notice though, as she scooted in closer to her brother and hugged him. Nail felt surprised by the move, although he decided to hug back. As horrible as this situation was, at least he could know that at long last he felt properly reunited with his sister. That he had family left in this world. That was probably the only thing he could hold onto right now. Carrie spoke again, whispering in his ear. "I wanted to say thanks. For saving me. Even after how I treated you last week."

"It's all right…" Nail whispered back. "I wasn't too nice to you either. But let's forget that happened. You're my sis. You deserve special treatment from me." That was the truth. Even as little children, the two of them felt very close to each other, like they had a bond. Nail had the knife scar on his chest to prove it, from when he'd protected her from a mugger as a little boy.

"All right." After Carrie said that, the two released from their embrace, looking at each other, before letting their eyes return to the destroyed city before them. Nail actually felt a bit surprised, looking at that again. Being with his little sister again like that just made him completely forget about the situation they were in right now. That reminded him.

"Carrie? I'm sorry I couldn't save Mr. Olandra, or his guard." He let out a deep sigh of regret. True, it had been partially Mr. Olandra's fault they'd died, considering he'd gotten in their way when Metal and Sonic were coming. However, that didn't mean Nail didn't feel like looking at their deaths passively. That bird took in his sister and protected her, after all.

Carrie couldn't help but let a fresh stream of tears flow from her eyes, at the mention of when that happened. She didn't say anything for a while, and Nail didn't bother trying to get her to talk. The wolf needed that quiet. After about a minute or so, the conversation resumed again. "I really do miss him. But I'm thankful to be alive. I know Mr. Olandra wouldn't want me to be miserable for the rest of my life over him and his guard dying. He'd want me to keep moving forward." Nail smiled a little at that. However, Carrie suddenly turned the tables on him, as she said something else. "I think you need to move forward too though, Aug."

Nail blinked, a bit surprised she'd suddenly put the spotlight on him like that. "What are you talking about?"

Those blue eyes of hers rotated back to him, looking in his own yellow eyes directly. She seemed a bit upset, although a little hopeful at the same time. "I want you to stop being a mercenary." Again, Nail felt himself caught off guard by this. That'd be a pretty tall order for him. The mercenary's way of life was the only thing he'd known since he was in his early teens, and he was…what? Twenty-one now? "It's not right. I don't remember you being like this at all when we were kids."

As gently as he could, he replied to her question, hoping he might get her to step back a bit. "Life just dealt me this path, after Mom and Dad were killed. If I didn't take it, I'd have starved and joined them."

She didn't let up on the attack though. Firmly, Carrie started talking more. Nail also couldn't help but realize her mood appeared to be rapidly shifting from sadness to anger. "Look at me, I don't have to kill people to survive. Whenever you take out someone for money, you're saying their life is worth less than your own. You're turning into the people who murdered our parents."

Nail felt like he'd just taken a physical punch right in his gut. He didn't know what he was supposed to say to that, if there was anything he could say. The fox decided to change tactics. "Yeah…but you've got that special power. That power that lets you read people's emotions and intentions. I bet that was a big help to you. I didn't have that gift, so I had to try something else."

But Carrie blindsided him again with what she said next. She seemed to be full of surprises today. "And with that power, Aug, I know you're thinking with a good heart right now. This isn't like one of those missions you said you did. You're here because you want to make up for past mistakes." He sure couldn't argue with that, and decided to just let her continue. "Why not fix the mistake of being a mercenary too?"

Nail fell silent, and stared at the cobblestone street at his feet. He seemed at a loss for words, as he looked at a family of moles nearby staring at the smoldering wreckage of what used to be their house, and weeping bitterly. Nail could even see what looked like a dead husband in a wife's arms. She seemed in total disbelief that all of this had happened, and so quickly.

In another time, another place, Nail might have been assigned to a job with similar results. Sometimes he had been asked to kill men who had families, and he was sure this would be what those jobs left behind. The fox hadn't thought about it at those times, writing it off as "just business", but it seemed surprisingly clear now. He didn't want to admit it, but Carrie was right. In essence, he'd become like the people who'd killed their parents and younger sister. He became what he hated. "Carrie…I tell you what. If I…after I'm through with this mission, I'll quit being a mercenary forever."

Carrie grinned at her, and returned the hug. "I know you will, Aug. You aren't lying right now." Nail returned the smile.

But then a shadow fell across the two. Nail frowned, before turning around to see who it was, and Tails and Knuckles stood there. However, Nail couldn't help but notice something was….different…about Tails. The merc expected him to still be crying or something over the big losses, but that wasn't the case.

Instead, Tails glared at the two of them with the coldest expression he'd ever seen. Nail felt both transfixed and frightened by that stare. That wasn't right. An eight-year-old shouldn't wear an expression like that. It made Tails look quite a few years older than he was. He carried himself like some kind of veteran warrior, rather than a child.

"I'm tired of this fighting." He spoke simply, loudly, and firmly. Like some kind of soldier. The 'few years older' theme continued into that. "I say it's time for the final battle. I want this to end now. We're attacking Robotropolis. And this time I'm not going to let Metal Sonic and Sonic get away from me again."

_Holy crap…is this the same Tails I knew from before? _

Nail turned to Carrie, and noticed she had a similar expression on her face. Knuckles looked a little put off guard by it too. There could be some danger to letting this attitude fester in Tails. While it'd make him infinitely more determined to win, it also might make him charge off into battle foolishly without planning things out. The last thing they needed right now as for Tails to run off and get himself killed in a fit of rage. Slowly, Nail stood up, and approached the younger fox. "Tails…don't you think we should plan first?"

"We need to attack him now!" Tails practically screamed Nail's ear off with that. He actually winced a bit, pulling his fox ears down against his head. "I don't want to see this happen ever again!"

Carrie stood up as well, moving towards Tails. Nail edged backwards a bit, letting her get closer. If there was one thing his sister wolf was good at, it was calming people down. Maybe she could work her magic on him. She got on her knees to get at eye level with him, and gave him a neutral look. "Tails…you need to calm down, all right? I know how you feel. I'm kind of the same way right now."

The hard edged look on Tails' face faded a bit, but it came back. "But we need to attack now. Robotnik'll probably be working on a way to stop my reprogrammer once the bots get back." A valid point, Nail supposed. Carrie nodded in agreement with the younger fox.

"All right, I understand. But it's no good if you just rush in there and you get killed too. Anger makes you blind and stupid. Believe me, I know. Look…just…spend a little bit of time resting." She brushed a bit of mud and blood out of the fur on his arm, and moved the head tuft away from Tails' blue eyes. Behind that hard-edged look, he did look kind of weary. "You need some time to rest. You look terrible."

Tails just stared at her for a second, before he finally let his shoulders sag. "I guess…you're right."

Nail breathed a sigh of relief at that. With that situation averted, Nail decided to suggest an idea to the two of them that would probably help them gear up for this last battle. He strolled over towards Knuckles. "Say…Knuckles?" The echidna turned, giving him his attention. "You wanna get to Robotropolis as soon as possible, right?"

The echidna nodded. "Yeah…what about it?"

"Well…I've got an apartment in Robotropolis, you see."

Knuckles' eyes bulged out at that. "Are you kidding me? Who would wanna live there?"

Nail rolled his eyes. "Well…me, and Redrum. It's by far the best place to hide when you've got the law and other bounty hunters bearing down on you. Nobody wants to go out there, and Robo doesn't think anybody would try what we're doing. Anyway, we might could go there and work out plans."

Knuckles nodded at that, but then his eyes briefly widened, like he'd just remembered something. "Hey…speaking of Redrum… Where is he? Oh…and where's Falc too?"

Carrie spoke up. "Falc? You mean that raccoon that was with you Nail?" Nail nodded in reply. "Last I saw of Falc, he was still in your car, Nail. He must have really hit his head hard when we crashed. I hope he'll be okay…"

"I'll go wake him up. Nail, you go get Redrum." Knuckles grinned, brandishing one of his fists. "We need to move out of here ASAP."

Nail nodded, and stood up from his place on the curb. While Knuckles and Tails walked away, he turned back to his sister. "This is it Carrie. The last battle."

Carrie blinked a bit at that statement, looking afraid. She stood up at her full height, easily standing a good foot over her brother even though he was older by two years. "Just come back, all right Nail? I don't want to lose what's left of my family, after we've been apart for so long."

Nail smiled, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He couldn't help but feel strange though, doing this with somebody taller than him. "Don't worry, I will." He turned around and took off down the street. The feeling he had was…interesting. Nail felt a personal stake in this mission before, but now he had another one. He had to live, not just to repent for his mistakes, but for Carrie. To keep what was left of their family alive. Nail would survive. He knew it. Dying was not an option.


	10. Stratagem

**Chapter 10: Stratagem **

**September 10th, 2316 – 10:30 AM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

Knuckles grumbled under his breath as he stepped into another pile of who-knows-what, as he continued walking through a danky, rusty sewer pipe. He couldn't tell what it was, between the insufficient light supplied by his flashlight, and the murkiness of the water. While the city played host to only robots and Robotnik, and thus almost no droppings should be left down here, Knuckles still didn't enjoy mucking about in the sewer. When Tails said they were going to attack Robotropolis, this sure wasn't what he had in mind.

Until the other day, he also had no idea that Nail and Redrum had a hideout in Robotropolis. Their rationale for settling down here made a little sense: lots of people wanted to kill or arrest them, but lots of people were scared of Robotnik too. So, live where Robotnik lives, and all the people who want to kill or arrest them stay away. However, he and Tails both agreed they were really just trading one risk for another…and the risk they were getting was much larger than the one they were getting rid of.

Oh well… It worked out beautifully in the end for all of them anyway. That apartment would provide a valuable place for them to hide out until it was time to attack Robotropolis. Nail halted in front of them and turned his head to the ceiling. "This is it." Knuckles snapped his flashlight towards what Nail was looking at, up towards a manhole cover in the ceiling. An image of a nail was painted on the cover in silver paint, which shined brightly in the darkness. Knuckles grinned at the sight of that.

_Why didn't I see that coming? _

Nail climbed up the ladder first, pushing aside the manhole cover, and the others followed. When Knuckles got to the top, he turned around a full 360 degrees, taking in the surroundings. They stood in a dark parking garage, totally empty of pretty much anything. The place looked rather old, with cracks across all of the surfaces, and a fine layer of dust covering almost everything…except for one corner.

Newly-installed lights in the ceiling brightly lit stacks of spare tires and parts, plus a workbench and cabinets full of tools for car maintenance. It reminded Knuckles a bit of the Tornado's hangar back at Sonic's and Tails' hideout. He guessed this was where Nail and Redrum stored their truck when they weren't using it. Nail though walked past all of that and headed for a door marked "Stairs", as he explained the place. "This is the garage under the apartment building that we live in. We've got to go up a couple floors before we get to our room."

A plain concrete stairwell beyond the door led them to the second floor, and up there Nail unlocked the first door they came to. What was in the living room on the other side absolutely did not shock Tails and Knuckles, based on Nail's and Redrum's skills. It looked pretty much just like an ordinary apartment…except guns were covering almost every available surface. Racks on the walls full of them, tables covered in partially-disassembled guns…there were even some laying about willy nilly on the chairs and other furniture. Boxes of spare ammunition, magazines, and grenades lined the walls as well. Knuckles laughed at the sight. "Nice place."

However, the weapons reminded him of something he'd been pondering for quite a while now, since they'd escaped Canma's prison. Him, Tails, Redrum, Nail, and Falc created an informal team here…made only just because they needed to organize one quickly to deal with the recent crises.

Now that things had slowed down a bit, he didn't trust Nail, Redrum, and Falc in a place like this. While Knuckles was tough and courageous, he wasn't an idiot, and didn't find the idea of standing in this apartment full of lethal weapons with three unpredictable mercenaries to be all that appealing. Hell…until a little while ago, he and Tails were enemies with Nail and Redrum, during that bounty fiasco. Nail just flashed Knuckles back a sincere-looking smile though. "Thanks for the compliment."

Knuckles could not believe this was Carrie's brother. Night and day had more in common than them. They weren't even the same species, which made it seem even more unlikely they were related. The echidna wondered how their relationship would be from now on. Knuckles knew it hurt the wolf a lot to know her brother killed and kidnapped people for a living. Regardless, he shook it off. They were here on business, and he had no time to think through all this right now. "I think you told us on the way here that you and Redrum saw where they kept the robot hedgehogs, right?"

"Sure did!" Redrum sounded rather enthusiastic, as he took a seat at the table in the middle of the room. He started sweeping off the junk on top to make room for an open surface. Nail helped him, and motioned for the other three to sit down. A few guns clattered onto the floor. Knuckles flinched, thinking they'd go off, but fortunately that didn't happen. It didn't seem to bother the others though, as everybody took a seat in the mismatched chairs.

Nail leaned back in an old beaten-up rocker, as he folded his arms. He stared off into space, not really looking at anybody else. "So…what's say we work on a plan then?"

"Sure." Tails took a few books from a nearby pile of random clutter, so he could sit up in his wooden kitchen table chair.

Nail turned to Redrum. "Hey Redrum….get a monitor over here and plug yourself in, so we can see the map of Robotropolis you downloaded." Knuckles blinked. That sounded kind of weird, even though it made sense. He'd never thought of Nail ever using his friend as what was essentially a gigantic USB drive.

The robotic dog extended a cable, while Nail put an old computer monitor onto the table where everyone could see it. After Redrum connected himself, a map of the Robotropolis core appeared on the screen. One room flashed in yellow. Redrum jerked a finger towards it. "That's the room there where Robo is keeping the metal hedgehogs. We know, because I and Nail have both been there."

Knuckles suddenly had an intake of breath. Was Robotnik's security really that lax around here? He immediately asked the obvious question. "How'd you manage to get that far into the base?"

Nail chuckled a bit, as if he was about to share some kind of funny joke. "Quite a bit easier than I thought it would be, actually. We just went to the cargo yard, got inside a container, put a shipping label on it, and had ourselves delivered to that room." Knuckles felt dumbfounded. He knew Robotnik could be stupid at times, but never _that _stupid. Was it really that simple? Nail chimed in again. "I was thinking we could try doing that again. It'd definitely be the easiest way in."

Falc jumped up off of his chair, to where everyone else could see him. "If that way worked, then we might not even need the rest of the army to pull this off." For some reason, he seemed oddly enthusiastic about this course of action.

Regardless though, Tails added onto what he said. "Yeah, but I think we should get them rounded up around Robotropolis and put on full alert anyway, in case something goes wrong. You never know what could happen out there."

While Knuckles would prefer direct assault, he knew that would be a stupid idea. He remembered how hard it was for Tails to get that reprogrammer working while those two bots made mincemeat out of the army. "Agreed. Let's not have them attack. It'd be a lot easier to reprogram them if they're still sleeping in that room, instead of flying around and destroying everything."

Nail nodded in agreement, leaning forwards onto the table. "A stealth-op would definitely be preferable here. Besides, once we've got those two robots on our side, it'll be really easy to get out again even if the base is put on alert. They can do all the hard work for us." Knuckles grinned at the idea of Robotnik's two most dreaded creations ripping his entire base to pieces, as if it were made of nothing more than cardboard. Towers toppling over, fuel tanks exploding, and entire divisions of robots were instantly vaporized to nothing in just a few seconds time.

Then suddenly, an idea occurred to him; it was an idea that normally seemed impossible that might actually be attainable this very day. "You know…we could probably even finish this war with Robotnik right here if this worked out. Sonic and Metal Sonic could destroy the entire base and capture Robotnik for trial." There was a string of grins all around the room. If that worked out, there would be people dancing in the streets over the news.

Tails seemed particularly glad, as he jumped up to his full height on his chair. "That'd be great! The planet could finally enjoy peace again!"

"It's kind of weird, but this whole metal hedgehog business actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise." That was Nail talking again, still leaning forwards on the table.

However, Knuckles frowned at that remark. True, it would be great if they could pull it off, but they'd paid a very heavy cost already to get this far. Blessing was not the word that came to mind when he thought about that, especially when he thought about how Zack died back at the tower and Carrie's boss died when his hotel collapsed on top of him "So many people have died though… And so much destroyed…"

Nail turned his head to Knuckles, and shrugged a bit. "Take what you can get, I say. Would you rather just keep fighting Robotnik like usual instead of taking him out now?" Knuckles had to admit it was a good point. The situation was horrible but the least he could do was see the silver lining in it. Nail continued, turning back to the others. "Anyway… You guys should try getting in the same way we did. Redrum…show them our entry point."

The map moved over towards the perimeter fence near the cargo yard. A pathway represented by a green dotted line lit up. Knuckles scanned the entire setup. It seemed easy…almost too easy. He expected something a little more climatic here. Was it really good enough to be true? Nail started talking again, looking back and forth between Tails and Knuckles. "You think you guys could handle it on your own? I don't see why you'd need us along. When we were there the room didn't exactly have much security in it."

"But Nail…" Redrum jumped into the conversation. "Metal and Sonic weren't there the last time. I bet Robotnik would have more security around while he's fixing the bots, and trying to make them immune to Tails' device. And then we'd have to destroy them the hard way… That's something I really don't want to try to do."

"Amen to that." Knuckles nodded towards Redrum. They had enough trouble just trying to stay alive while they were battling them, let alone actually try to win the fight.

Falc turned to Knuckles and Tails, and put a hand on his chest. "Unlike my sister Canma, I've learned things about electronic locks and stuff. If he's got the room closed down, I could probably help you get in faster." Knuckles wasn't too sure how fast he could work compared to Tails, but they might need the backup anyway.

"Sounds good Falc. So what are you guys going to do then?" The echidna turned to face Nail and Redrum. Nail just shrugged, as if he couldn't think of any good ideas.

However, a smile crossed Redrum's face. He looked like he'd just remembered something very very good. "I'm still registered on Robotnik's computer network, so I can get in there if I plug into something. Maybe I can redirect patrols away from Tails and Knuckles, and let you know if something's coming up."

Nail smiled a little at that. "Sounds good. That just leaves me though…" He slumped into his chair, as the grin faded from his face. Knuckles had to admit he was right. Nail was kind of a fifth wheel here. Sure he possessed spectacular gun skills, but on an operation like this that wouldn't do a lot of good. Not to mention, even if a firefight broke out, he'd be kind of redundant with Tails and Knuckles destroying five robots for every one he killed. Nail stroked his muzzle in thought. "I guess… I could stand up on a building near the perimeter of the core, and snipe any robots coming for you until you're inside. Not to mention it might be good having someone keeping an eye on things outside."

Knuckles nodded to that. "Well…everyone happy with the plan?" A round of "ayes" went up around the table, as everyone stood up from where they sat. "Let's get moving then, before Robo finishes his upgrades."

"And it was hard enough to crack the code this time around," Tails sighing, as he recalled the hours he'd put into building the thing strapped to his wrist. He too stood up from the table. "Robo's getting better and better. While he was wrong about me not being able to break into the robots' programming, it sure wasn't easy. I really don't want to face his next level of programming."

In the meantime, the others started preparing for the mission. Nail slipped into a new flak jacket, and collected ammunition for his rifle and his handgun. Redrum took a grenade gun off of a rack, and he too collected ammo for the weapon. The robot also took off the metal plates on his body, as he fit new, more durable plates in. Falc checked his knives to see if they were sharp, and pulled out his whip to see if there were any frays in it. All of them moved with a lot of speed and efficiency. While they were unpredictable mercs, Knuckles sure was happy to have them on their side.

That's not to say he wasn't just watching though. He went through some stretches, making sure all the bones and muscles were working fully. Tails was also skimming over his program on the monitor he'd built into his reprogrammer wristlet. Seemingly satisfied, the fox put it down on the counter, and then walked off to find the bathroom. Meanwhile, Nail put a box of radio headsets on the table and took out one of his own. "Everyone take a radio."

All the others did the same. As soon as Knuckles got on the headset, he turned back to Redrum and Nail. "Well…I'm ready."

"Me too," Nail aimed his handgun at a mirror hanging on the wall. He checked to see if the sights were properly aligned.

Meanwhile, Redrum patted his massive grenade launcher and grinned. "Same here."

Falc flexed his whip, as he stood next to the table where Tails left his reprogrammer sitting. He nodded that he was ready as well. Tails ran in from the bathroom and collected the reprogrammer wristlet again, putting it around his arm. He pressed some buttons and turned the monitor off, before he stepped forward and took his own headset. "We all set?" Nods went all around everyone. "Then let's end this!"

* * *

It wasn't long before they reached the perimeter fence Nail, Redrum, and Canma had gone over before to sneak in. In some ways, the operation pretty much went down very much like the first infiltration had gone, although there were differences.

Nail shot out the drone guns, while Falc, Redrum, Tails, and Knuckles crossed the perimeter fences, and went to the shipping computer. Redrum got them a shipping label from the computer, and then Tails, Knuckles, and Falc slapped the label on one of the containers before hopping inside. Meanwhile, Redrum stayed plugged into the shipping computer, as he started issuing commands to the robots to stay away from the shipping computer and the metal hedgehog room. A crane picked up the large box and put it on a truck, which then drove inside the core itself.

Nail watched all of this unfold through the scope of his rifle. The operation seemed to be proceeding smoothly…so far. Nail understood that you should always expect the unexpected, especially while doing missions like this. He knew that feeling all too well, with how not being aware of his surroundings once cost him half of his fox tail. The tail involuntarily twitched a bit at the memory of that day.

_Anything can happen out there…including getting your tail caught underneath a security door, and then being forced to cut it off with a knife before the guards chasing you catch up and shoot you in the face. _

He continued to watch vigilantly, but there seemed to be nothing more for him to do, now that Tails, Knuckles, and Falc were inside the Core. All he could really do was keep an eye on Redrum, although it wasn't like Redrum seemed to be doing much down there… But even as Nail thought about that, Redrum suddenly unhooked himself from the shipping computer, and ran around behind a cargo container. Nail blinked. That was unexpected. He quickly reached for his radio. "What're you doing Redrum? I can see you moving away from the computer."

"I saw a patrol headed my way." His answer sounded rather hasty, and Nail knew no robots were heading his way.

The fox had a clear view of the entire cargo yard, and nothing came up as he scanned the area with his rifle scope. He even engaged the thermal imaging mode, but the search still came up negative. The only heat signature he could see was Redrum himself. This was really starting to get strange. "Redrum, I've scanned the yard with infrared. I don't see anyone but you."

"They're there! Trust me! Just look to the east!" Sighing, Nail snapped his rifle in that direction. However, the guards appeared to just be exiting another building on the perimeter.

That struck Nail as rather odd. "All right…I see them now. But how'd you know they were coming? They shouldn't be in your line of sight."

"I think the system is starting to detect me interfering with the orders of his robots. I'm getting 'Access Denied' screens. The monitor was just showing which way the robots were heading on this map screen, then up came Access Denied. That's what I meant when I saw them. Anyway, I'm gonna look for somewhere to hide."

Nail sighed. He knew this operation wouldn't go as smoothly as they'd laid it out on paper. Oh well…at least now he didn't have to worry anymore about things being perfect. He started for the fire escape from his sniper post, as he continued talking to Redrum on the headset. "I'll be there shortly. You're gonna need backup."

The robotic dog gave another rather hasty response. He sounded kind of panicky. "No no… I'm fine. They're just dumb grunts. I'll just move into this warehouse over here and see if I can find a safer computer to work from." At the mention of the word 'warehouse', Nail brought up his rifle again and scanned the yard once more.

He spotted Redrum going inside the same warehouse Nail took up a sniper position on the last time they were here. As soon as Redrum stepped through the door though, he disappeared from the infrared scope's view. That presented problems for the both of them. "I can't give you sniper cover in there. I can't see you on infrared. Not to mention I wouldn't be surprised if they're moving in from that direction too."

"Trust me, I'm—" A loud buzzing sound came up in Nail's headset. Some kind of interference was jamming the signal. "—I'll hide—warehouse—boxes—stay away—can—myself—don't worry—" And then the connection finally broke. Suspicously, it sounded like the headset had been smashed into something when the connection broke. Nail wondered what that meant. Had he run into something while trying to escape from an enemy?

"Redrum…Redrum…" Nail dared not scream into the microphone, for fear of him being heard, or the sounds on the other end being heard as well. However, he got no response back in any case. That cinched it for Nail; he was going down there to help out. Redrum needed backup if he was gonna get out of there in one piece. Before he got lower on the fire escape, he shot out the power box for a row of drone guns, and finally hit the ground. The fox switched channels on his radio. "Tails, Knuckles, Falc…lost contact with Redrum. I'm going to see what's going on. I'm heading for the cargo yards now." He got no reply, but he really didn't have time to see if the message had gotten through.

The ascent across the walls was much easier than last time, considering Nail had the foresight to bring along a grappling hook on this trip. He didn't want a repeat of that scare he'd had the first time he'd crossed these security fences. It looked like Nail's planning sure had paid off. He crossed the walls in half the time he had before. Also, since he already knew the way, it didn't take too long to get to the warehouse. The robotic guards hadn't even had time yet to reach this area.

Nail stepped up to the door Redrum went through minutes before. After gently pressing down the handle, the door opened smoothly. The fox breathed a small sigh of relief. He'd been worried that Redrum might have locked the door behind him or something, in an effort to keep the guards from following behind. Nail quickly moved inside and closed the door quietly.

The place looked like a huge maze of boxes, much like the cargo yard outside. Only in here, there were smaller boxes of various shapes and sizes rather than just cargo containers. They stacked high on tops of racks built up throughout the room, and all of the shining metal glared from the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. The place had a very sterile, clean feel to it.

Just inside the door way, pieces of Redrum's smashed headset lay scattered across the floor. Looked like Nail was right. Something definitely had crushed it to pieces. That, to Nail, sent a powerful warning on how dangerous this place could be. He started on a slow walk through the building.

Because there were so many nooks and crannies due to the containers, Nail proceeded slowly through the warehouse with his handgun drawn up. He scanned every potential hiding spot he could find for hostiles, and occasionally looked behind himself. In a confusing place like this, it would be very easy for one of those guards to get the jump on Nail if he wasn't watching.

When Nail got to about the midway point of the long building, he realized he could hear hushed voices on up ahead. Nail's eyes widened as he realized one of them was Redrum's. The other voice definitely didn't sound like a robot's…

_Who's he talking to? We don't have anyone else working on this mission with us. Did one of the friendly soldiers outside the city secretly tail us in here? Or maybe it's someone who was imprisoned and managed to escape before getting roboticized…_

As he got closer, he could tell the voice was female, and it sounded familiar. When he thought about who it reminded him of though, he shook his head, unable to believe it.

_No…Canma's dead. I saw her shot in the head right in front of me. How is this possible? It just has to be a coincidence. It's not like ghosts or anything are real._

But as he stepped around the last pile of boxes and saw who owned the pair of voices, his face fell. Standing right there was Redrum, speaking to Canma. Canma Neuyan…in the flesh… Nail's eyes immediately focused on her forehead, but the bullet hole that was there before was gone now. He stood paralyzed to the spot, his brain unable to compute what he saw right in front of him.

_What the hell is this? _


	11. Backstab

**Chapter 11: Backstab**

**September 10th, 2316 – 9:30 PM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

Falc settled down on a smaller crate inside their truck container. He made sure to keep a hand against the wall to keep from falling out of his seat every time the vehicle bounced over a rut in the ground. This entire plan was playing out perfectly so far… Falc grinned inwardly at Tails and Knuckles, who sat on crates next to him.

At last though, the truck ground to a halt. Falc readied his whip, while Tails and Knuckles also went into their respective fighting stances. As soon as the door opened, the raccoon cracked his whip, circling it around the robot's head. One yank later, and he decapitated the bot. It slammed down to the floor with a thunderous crash. Tails whistled at the sight of that. "Nice work Falc. You're good with that whip."

Falc coiled his whip back up again, as he nodded his thanks. The three stepped out of the truck and paced into the lab. A large computer on one side…an operating table equipped with tools to repair the robots with….and the robots themselves in two tubes on the other side of the room. Tails and Knuckles walked over to them, nearly awestruck at how peaceful the two bots were. It just felt so strange and unnerving to see them at rest with how much destruction they caused. Falc imagined all sorts of nightmares on what could happen if those two bots happened to wake up right now. Fortunately though, Tails seemed to be feeling the same way, and immediately got to work by flipping open his wrist reprogrammer. "All right… Here goes."

"We'll keep an eye on the door for you Tails." Knuckles moved towards the entryway. Falc decided he'd join him. He definitely did not want anything interrupting Tails' work, for all of their sakes. But overall, the little fox needed a lot less time to hack into the robot's programming in this encounter. Between what the little fox learned about their programs the last time around, and the much calmer setting, it only took him a couple of minutes to get in.

"All right guys. Just one more keystroke, and it'll all be over." Falc whirled around, looking at the fox. He felt his pulse racing at the sound of that. Were they really that close to finishing this after all this loss? Sometimes he thought this ordeal would have never ended. Anyway, he couldn't stand it. He didn't want _anything_ coming in here and ruining everything in a split second, like the movies.

"Well what are you waiting for? Press that button!" Falc was so happy he didn't even bother keeping his voice down. Tails looked all too happy to comply, as he hit the enter key. Falc waited…his body filled with anticipation as to what was about to happen. But for a minute or two, there was nothing. Falc continued to watch the robots, feeling very tense, wondering if the plan hadn't worked out after all.

Then, the eyes on the two hedgehog robots flickered on, before they used their metal arms to punch through the glass. The green fluid spilled out, covering the lab floor in a very short amount of time. Sonic and Metal Sonic stepped down out of their tubes, and then they slowly looked around the room. Neither of them said anything. Slowly, Tails approached Sonic, maintaining some distance in case things fouled up somehow. Falc didn't blame him. "Hey…Sonic… Is the mind control program off now?"

Sonic simply stared at Tails for a moment, still not saying anything…and then the robot's eyes shot towards the reprogramming device on the fox's arm. In a split second, Sonic reached out and snatched the reprogrammer right off of Tails' arm. He did it so quickly that a few cuts were left behind from the metal as it was torn off Tails' arm. The fox howled at the pain. "What are you doing?!" But the robot hedgehog ignored the fox's question. Sonic held out the reprogrammer between both of his arms, and pulled as hard as he could. The device snapped in two, as the electronics inside sparked and pieces of it clattered across the floor. He let the remnants sprinkle across the floor, clattering as they hit the ground.

"Why did you do that Sonic?!" Falc couldn't believe Knuckles talked to Sonic that way. He wasn't being smart. Instead of doing that, the raccoon edged backwards towards the door, in case it turned out he'd have to run. But then…the hedgehogs smashed right through the ceiling of the room…and then the next one…and the one after that…and still more. The three furs walked over and looked up through the holes. Straight up the robots went, through the entire complex, and right through the roof. A bare patch of the dark sky could now be seen above.

Falc widened his eyes. He was really glad they hadn't tried to do something like that to himself. But regardless, he wasn't sure if the plan had worked yet. What if the robots had just gone crazy instead of doing what the program told them what to do? Just then, Falc spotted a dark round thing falling down through all of the holes, silhouetted against the sky at the top of the Core. "Stand back!"

Everyone moved out of the way just in time as the thing hit the floor of the hedgehog room with a splat. For a second, Falc wasn't sure what it was, exactly. It was big, red, and round…and then it hit him. This was Robotnik. Or at least…it used to be. The head was gone, leaving nothing but a pool of blood. Falc's mouth involuntarily opened.

_Is this for real? Is he finally dead? _

The other two seemed equally shocked. It didn't seem right… Robotnik had been such a staple of this world for so long Falc just had trouble accepting his death, even if it was surely an improvement to this world. Knuckles just stared at the corpse, and then back up at the hole in the ceiling. "God… I thought we'd be celebrating this."

Frightened voices started coming to the three of them over their radios, with all of the transmissions seeming to originate from the military forces hidden outside the city.

"Tails! Knuckles!" The voice had a strange accent to it. Was that…Australian? Falc wasn't sure what it was… "Lieutenant Marshal Owens here! Metal and Sonic are here'n they're killin' everyone! Everything's going up in flames!" Without waiting, the three of them dashed into the hallway, searching for a window. Soon enough, they came across one. The scene below looked catastrophic. Just a few moments before, all had been quiet outside Robotropolis, but now a virtual halo of flames encircled the city. More fires and explosions sprouted up everywhere constantly, including in the air from aerial vehicles. Though he couldn't hear them, Falc knew that there'd be hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers screaming out there as they were getting killed.

"It didn't work!" Tears streamed from Tails' eyes. "We failed…we failed! Damn it we failed!" More reports came in over the radio. It wasn't much new information though. Basically they were just more soldiers calling in about the blasts.

However, one of the reports caught everyone's ear. "Uh…Tails, Knuckles? This is uh…Captain Sato. Something strange is going on. Sonic was coming right towards me, his rocket booster on full power, but then he just flew on by me, and then he killed several soldiers. All of them were human. He didn't scratch any furries in my squad, not even me. I'm getting the same report from all over the battlefield."

Tails and Knuckles just looked at each other, their mouths wide open. While Falc knew perfectly well what was going on, it seemed to have totally blindsided these two heroes. The echidna spoke first. "Isn't that what Canma's program was supposed to do?"

"Yeah…but I destroyed it! That shouldn't have been the program I uploaded to them! It just couldn't be!" Tails felt totally bewildered by this turn of events, like someone had just turned the world upside down or something.

The two of them turned to Falc…but he was already long gone, dashing round a corner of the hallway. The raccoon grinned ear to ear as he continued to hear explosions outside the building, and he brought his headset up to his mouth. "Mission complete Canma. The hedgehogs have begun their rampage, and Robotnik is dead. We've won. It's all over for the humans now. Let's head for the rendezvous point and get out of here. Then we can start celebrating." All Falc and Canma had to do now was go into hiding until the bots did their work, and then they could come out and reap the rewards…

* * *

Meanwhile, Nail hid behind a cargo container in the warehouse, listening in on every word Canma and Redrum traded with one another. He could hardly believe this was his best friend talking here. It took every bone in his body to not just run out there and gun both of them down, but he also wanted to hear everything they were talking about.

"Simple plan…wasn't it?" Redrum chuckled a bit as he spoke. "To think that all it took to get Falc on board their crew was that fake execution in your prison."

"Yes…I know Redrum." Canma laughed back in return. The two of them reveled in their brilliance, while Nail sighed. He couldn't believe he'd fallen for all of this crap. "That idea of stealing those training bullets from the police station in Carlboron was a stroke of pure genius."

"Thank God they changed from paint bullets to bullets with fake blood capsules in them. Guess they did that to desensitize them to blood in a real shootout or something. Even then it doesn't look very real. Can't believe those three morons even fell for it!" Nail let out a long sigh. Redrum was right, of course. He'd been successfully played, and all because he didn't take time to observe Canma's wounds a bit more. Maybe he hadn't noticed because the cell block Canma got "executed" in had poor lighting. Come to think of it, maybe they'd done that intentionally to make it harder to tell the fake blood from real blood.

"Anyway Redrum, you've been a great help, especially with keeping that anti-human program stored in you after I tested it on you."

"Heh, no big deal. I'm essentially a walking computer, complete with a hard drive. Was easy to slip Falc the program on a flash drive. I guess he probably put it on Tails' reprogrammer at some point when we were in Nail's apartment…"

Thundering booms sounded outside the building. What was that? Risking a look around the side of the container, Nail spotted Redrum and Canma looking out a window towards where the blasts came from. "Has it started?" Canma sounded rather tense, ecstatic. Like she was about to open this huge present at her birthday party. She pressed her face against the glass, observing everything happening outside. The explosions seemed to be intensifying in number, and even the light started to become visible through the windows as well.

An incoming transmission on Canma's radio confirmed what was going on. He could hear Falc's voice on the other end of the line. "Mission complete Canma. The hedgehogs have begun their rampage, and Robotnik is dead. We've won. It's all over for the humans now. Let's head for the rendezvous point and get out of here. Then we can start celebrating." Nail growled, although he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. He'd had a direct hand in making Canma's false death a reality.

"Everything seems to have worked out! Finally…we'll be rid of humanity forever!" Canma practically started jumping for joy where she was standing. Nail growled again. What a sick woman. Couldn't believe she'd actually helped her do anything when he'd first met her.

Silence for a few moments. Nail couldn't even make out whispers. Why did the two of them suddenly stop talking? Did they leave the warehouse or something? But he hadn't heard any footsteps… The fox decided to chance another look around the box.

Only Redrum stood there at the window. Before he could figure out what was going on, Nail felt the tip of a sword poking into his lower neck, and he froze stiff. Canma laughed behind him. "I knew I heard someone growling over here. So good to see you again Nail. Come now…turn around with your hands up." Slowly, the fox turned around to face the purple vixen. Clanking footsteps moved up behind Nail, and Redrum was there. After taking away Nail's headset and crushing it, he disarmed Nail of his ammo pack, his handgun, his knife, and his sniper rifle, all while Canma held the fox at sword-point.

Now that he was safely disarmed, Redrum raised up Nail's handgun and pointed it at the back of his head, and Canma retracted her sword. She let out a little sigh. "Shame really… I'd have loved to have you as my mate, especially after we shared that bed at your place." Nail narrowed his eyes. So they really had done it. The bitch even raped him when he was drunk. Meanwhile, Redrum burst out into a small fit of giggles, before he quieted down.

Canma raised a hand to silence him, before looking back at Nail. "Now...is there anything I can do to convince you to come over to my side?" Nail spit in her face. The reaction seemed to surprise her for a bit, as she suddenly reared back, but then she just smirked and wiped it off of her face, like it was no big deal. "I see then. No matter. As enjoyable as you were, I can certainly find others out there."

"No big loss for me either." Nail spoke rather flatly, although inside he was seething with rage at the whole situation. He wanted so dearly to just take his guns back from Redrum and shoot them both, but by the time he managed to get to one of them the robotic dog would probably shoot him in the head. He hated being in such a powerless situation.

"Well then…I believe I don't have any more business here." Canma turned around and started for the exit. She walked as if she were at some kind of party, like this was some kind of casual conversation. The nerve of that woman… "Redrum, I'm going to meet up with Falc now. Dispose of Nail and I'll meet you down in the sewers later. Don't keep me waiting."

"As you wish, Lady Canma, new ruler of the world." Redrum threw out a little fit of laughter at that. Canma turned around, returning a small smile, as she stepped through a roll-up door and walked out of sight.

As soon as she disappeared, Redrum gave Nail a rather hard whack in the back of the head with his own handgun, knocking him to the floor. The impact was so sudden that Nail felt totally caught off guard by the pain. He rubbed the back of his head, looking up towards the robotic dog. "Come on, get up." Redrum's mood appeared to have totally changed, and now he seemed positively angry. Since he had a gun to his head, Nail complied. "I told you I didn't need help. On the radio, remember? Why did you come? Why couldn't you have just stayed up on that building like I told you?"

Nail still felt too blindsided to say anything. Eventually, he gathered himself up, and spoke. "Because you are…or I thought you were…my friend, Redrum."

"Friend?" Redrum said, practically spitting the word out. "We'd still be friends if you'd just stayed out there. But you know more than you're supposed to know, and now I have to kill you."

"Kill me? I gave you your life back Redrum. You'd still be a worker bot were it not for me. This is how you repay me?"

"Yeah. I'm a serial killer. What's one more life?" That statement sounded resolute, although Nail noticed Redrum's gun wavering. Guy looked to be having an internal conflict here. Maybe Nail could use that to his advantage.

"Your gun's wavering. I can tell you don't wanna do this." Nail tried to sound relaxed, but in truth he felt terrified for his life. This whole thing could end at any time, at the snap of that trigger. He really didn't know just how much leverage he'd have here…

"You shut the hell up!" Redrum pulled back the slide of the pistol, cocking it. Yep…that was a pretty good sign Redrum wasn't too sure about his decision here. Redrum looked like he got flustered there.

"If you're gonna shoot me, then why don't you just do it? You can't."

Redrum let out a little sigh, and allowed the handgun to lower down slightly, although not so much that Nail could make a grab for it. "Can't believe I'm actually having trouble doing this. I thought it'd be easy." Regret crept into his voice.

"Why did you want to do it then? Why'd you betray me for her?"

"Do you have any idea what kinds of riches are going to be left behind once all of the humans are dead? We'll have all of their money, their houses, their cars, their business empires, their weaponry…everything." Redrum's gun still wavered all around.

"Why don't you just let me go?" Nail felt himself going from getting scared to getting irritated. This was ridiculous. The fox really had no idea why they were even doing this right now, with how much Redrum didn't wanna kill him. "There's no way I'll be able to stop this plan now anyway."

"I can't. If you can even cut off part of your own body to stay alive, I don't know what you'll do if I take this gun off of ya." Nail's half-a-fox-tail twitched a bit, and he couldn't help but smile. Even though Redrum double-crossed him, he still fully understood what Nail could be capable of doing.

Felt good to know he inspired that much fear in Redrum, although it wouldn't exactly help him get away… "Glad you still respect me."

"Damn straight I do. Right up to the end you're a real professional." Redrum let out a long sigh of regret. He really didn't want to be here right now, and neither did Nail. "Why couldn't you have just taken Canma's offer, huh? I'll tell you what. I'll give you a second chance. Just say that you agree to her deal and we can walk away from this. Just think of all that wealth Nail. It's a mercenary's wet dream. The biggest haul we've ever had. We'd never have to worry about anything again for as long as we lived. We'll be like kings." Redrum's electronic eyes practically seemed to be welling wide open the more and more he talked about it. The guy was going from cruel serial killer mode to good friend once again. It felt downright bizarre, especially with Nail's own handgun in his face.

Even more incredible…Nail knew for the longest time that Redrum was one greedy bastard, but he didn't know the greed would go this far. The fox definitely did not share his friend's greed, so his response was easy to bring forth. "At the expense of millions of innocent people dying? No thanks, **friend**."

Redrum sighed and didn't let up on his attack. "You and me both kill people all the time. I'm sure we'll get over it eventually." Now it was Nail's turn. The fox just looked at the floor...and saw something. A wrench…right at his feet.

Nail looked up again though, before Redrum decided to look at what Nail stared at. That gave him an idea on how he could get out of this. He decided to continue the conversation just to keep a cover going. "Easy for you to say. Me, I only kill when it's necessary. You…you're a serial killer. You're not like me. You've got no conscience."

"And I'm glad I don't, Nail." The fox wasn't really listening anymore. He drew his boot back a bit as Redrum talked. This was a risky plan and he'd only have a window of a second, maybe just a half second more, but he had to try… Redrum started talking again. "Those kinds of feelings are just a—"

He didn't get a chance to finish, as Nail kicked the wrench towards Redrum's feet. The robotic dog looked down, confused by the sudden clanging sound of metal against concrete. That was all Nail needed. The fox suddenly sprung forward and ducked down under the pistol's barrel, before snatching at the weapon by the bottom of the barrel. He jerked the weapon up and away from both of them, so that neither would get hit.

Redrum fired, and the shot rang throughout the warehouse, echoing off of all the metal walls and containers. Not letting up on his surprise attack, Nail launched a kick into the dog's chest, pushing him backwards and forcing him to let go of the handgun. However, Redrum seemed to be regrouping again, as he pulled a grenade launcher off of his back. But Nail was faster. He jerked the handgun up and started firing at Redrum.

However, the bullets had no effect, considering Redrum was just a metal robot. While he backed up a few steps, the bullets seemed to have simply pinged off of his chest plates. It looked like the upgrades he made to his armor back at the hideout worked very good…too good. Redrum laughed, as he brought his grenade launcher to bear.

Nail ducked behind a nearby cargo container, but a second later an explosion made a big smoking hole in the side of it, to the point where some flames even rushed through new holes on Nail's side. The fox couldn't believe it. That could have been him there. To make matters worse, he had a gun that wouldn't work on Redrum.

Nail growled under his breath, as he retreated, stepping around another corner. Without his high-caliber sniper rifle, he'd need to think of another way to take out Redrum, and to do that he'd need some time to hide and come up with a plan. It looked like Redrum wasn't willing to give him that time though, as the robot dog jumped out from behind the corner and fired another shot his way.

A stack of metal containers exploded next to Nail. The fox brought up one arm to shield his eyes from the light, but hot shrapnel cut across it, leaving big cuts. Nail screamed in pain, as he held his other arm over the wounds to soothe them. While he'd only caught part of the blast, those cuts sure would sting like a bitch…making it harder for him to think and fight back. Redrum just laughed behind him, as he stuck another grenade into the chamber.

Around another corner, Nail saw a small rack full of metal containers. Using his good arm, Nail holstered his pistol and grabbed ahold of one of the support beams in the rack. Then, he yanked as hard as he could. The entire thing toppled over into the aisle he was in…right in Redrum's path. Nail ducked around another corner, just as another grenade tore apart a huge cargo container to his right, blasting him with searing heat. But Nail didn't stop. He charged around another corner. While the knocked-down rack wouldn't slow up Redrum for more than a few seconds, it might be all that the fox needed to just get away and find somewhere to hide.

"Coward! Come back here and fight!" Nail ignored Redrum's shouts, as he took the opportunity to weave in and out through a few more cargo containers, picking his routes at random so that Redrum would be forced to break off his pursuit and search for him slowly. Once Nail was sure he'd gained significant distance, he slowed down a bit so that his footsteps on the metal flooring wouldn't make such a big racket. After that, the fox hid in a dark corner, behind a support column for the roof.

He caught his breath for a moment, while keeping his ears steeled for the sounds of Redrum walking about. Nail knew that Redrum usually wasn't one for subtlety, so it wouldn't be that hard to keep track of where he was. Sure enough, when the ringing in his ears died down a bit, he could hear metal footsteps on the metal floor echoing through the warehouse. However, all of the boxes interfered with the sound waves, which made it sound like the footsteps could be coming from anywhere. Not to mention the explosions outside made it even harder to listen for the sounds. And that sure didn't sit good with Nail. He really didn't want to get caught again.

Slowly, Nail walked towards one of the warehouse walls, which he could see over the piles of boxes towering above him. If he stuck to the edges of the room, there'd be less chance for Redrum to set up an ambush. Finally, he slipped around behind another large container, and leaned against it, keeping his gun drawn. Maybe now he could get some quiet time to plot a bit.

_I could try snatching the rifle off of his back…but that plan's way too risky, and I'm not feeling lucky today. Or maybe I can keep shooting Redrum until his armor wears out…but that wouldn't work. I don't have enough ammo since he took my ammo pack. _

He wracked his brain, trying to think of some way out of this situation. What could he use to stop Redrum and escape the room? What did he have available to him? Again, Nail risked a glance out from his cover. He breathed a small sigh of relief when Redrum wasn't there. The fox glanced around the room, as he looked for something he could use as a weapon or a trap.

There wasn't much he could see to work with though. Lots of boxes were piled up everywhere, as usual. He could see a forklift too, but Redrum would probably blast him before Nail could run him down. Didn't look like there was much he could use…

_Maybe I could try to shoot him in the eyes. He's not gonna be chasing me if he can't see. I can probably manage that. Only problem is nailing that shot before he nails me. It won't be impossible, but it sure isn't going to be easy. I'll have to attack him head-on for this to work too, and I sure don't like playing chicken with somebody who's packing a grenade gun. But I need to end this fight fast…_

Nail nodded to himself, and stepped out from behind cover. Slowly, carefully, he moved through the warehouse, occasionally pausing to hold a hand up to the shrapnel wound in his arm. However, Redrum seemed to have slowed down after he realized he'd lost Nail. Nail couldn't make out any footsteps anywhere. All he could hear were those blasts outside in the distance. Felt rather creepy…like Death was in the distance and he was getting closer. Hell..that didn't sit too far off from what kind of situation he was in now.

The fox carefully walked in and out through the boxes and containers, checking every single nook and cranny for any sight of his opponent. He'd searched for a good few minutes now, but nothing had turned up. Nail couldn't help but feel sweat rolling down his face. Redrum could pop out at any second and end this, and that thought absolutely chilled Nail to the bone…

"Stop right there, Nail." He could feel the barrel of Redrum's grenade gun against his back, pressing into his skin. Nail just stood there, paralyzed. He'd lost… He couldn't believe it…after how far he'd come. Meanwhile, Redrum gave a little chuckle. "Thanks for making my decision to kill you a lot easier."

A deafeningly loud explosion assaulted Nail's eardrums, and he fell to the floor. All he could see was darkness, and he felt blistering heat all around him. Felt like he was in a furnace.

_Holy shit. Did I just die? Did I go to hell? _

He opened his eyes. Nope…he was still in the land of the living. Looking around, he saw that one of the army's helicopters just crashed through the roof, and started a gigantic fire in the warehouse all around him. Must have been one of those metal hedgehog's work. Nail felt like praising God right there for intervening in his fate…and then he realized Redrum should still be somewhere close by.

He whirled around, and saw Redrum in a similar state, laying across the floor. However…he started to get back up again. Despite the pain and the heat, Nail didn't hesitate, and leaped on top of Redrum to hold him down. If Nail focused on how badly he was hurting now, he'd lose his window of opportunity. But the fox found himself easily outmatched in strength. Redrum easily resisted Nail's feeble attempts to hold him down, and brought the grenade gun to bear on the fox's face… but then Nail brought around his handgun, jammed the barrel towards Redrum's robotic eyes, and pulled the trigger twice, once for each eye. The eyes shattered like glass bulbs, and the red irises faded away. Redrum screamed. "Damn you Nail!"

The robot dropped the grenade gun …but then he successfully managed to wrap his hands around Nail's throat. The fox felt himself gasping for air, as he dropped the handgun, and started to pry at Redrum's metal hands. It was like trying to unfasten handcuffs with nothing but bare hands. Nail rapidly felt himself losing strength, as Redrum chuckled a bit. "I can always replace my eyes, Nail. But you…since you're still flesh and blood, let's see you try to replace that neck of yours!"

Again, Nail tried prying at the hands, but it was no good. Nothing seemed to work. Frantically, Nail released his grip on Redrum's arms, and started fumbling around with his hands for the handgun he'd just dropped. After a few seconds of rapidly running his hands across the floor, the fox at last managed to find it. Without a second thought, Nail snatched up the weapon and fired a bullet towards Redrum's left arm. He was aiming for exposed area between armor plates where the arm bent. A black mess of hydraulic fluid sprayed out, splattering both Nail and Redrum all over with the chemical. Then, the left arm relaxed, allowing Nail to easily pry it off. He did the same with the right arm, and then his two legs. Redrum screamed out in frustration, as he realized he couldn't move his limbs anymore. "What did you do, you son of a bitch?!"

As Nail pushed the right hand off of his neck, he slowly stood up. The sight was rather funny, with how the dog fumbled about, pretty much unable to do anything except wiggle around on the floor without the use of his limbs. "Took away your arms and your legs."

"You did? Argh! Just you wait Nail! I'm gonna get you! I'm gonna kill for this!" More wiggling on the floor. Despite the near death situation he'd just gotten himself into, Nail couldn't help but laugh out loud at Redrum's predicament.

"Shut up." Nail jammed his handgun into Redrum's mouth and fired again, destroying the mouth speaker in the back. Now all that came out of the dog's mouth was static and sparks, as he continued to fumble around on the floor like some kind of big broken toy. Looked like he wouldn't be going anywhere now, and the army would surely be able to easily collect him after this was over. Laughing one more time at the sight, Nail collected his weapons again (plus Redrum's grenade gun), and took off out of the warehouse, in the direction Canma went. He had to catch her before she got away…


	12. A Glitch

**Chapter 12: A Glitch**

**September 10th, 2316 – 10:00 PM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

_We did it…we finally did it! _

As Canma rushed down a hallway in the Robotropolis Core, she didn't feel like she was running at all. Rather the vixen felt like she was floating on air with how happy she was over all of this. Here she stood as witness to her lifelong dream finally being fulfilled. Every window she passed by afforded her a beautiful view of the destruction unfolding outside. She only pitied that most of the forces sat too far away from Robotropolis for her to get an up-close look at their destruction. However, she knew she'd likely get another chance later. This was only the beginning. Soon the hedgehogs would move to other areas, and they would cleanse the human plague from this world forever.

Canma suddenly had an idea. Why stop here? After freeing Planet Freedom, they could take one of the spaceships left behind after the chaos, and use it to transport the metal hedgehogs to every other colony the humans owned. Finally, the hedgehogs would destroy earth , and the disease of homo sapiens would be stamped out forever, right at its source. It was a fitting punishment for a race that ripped her world to pieces.

She laughed long and hard at the thought. It would be so beautiful a sight. And Canma wanted to be there to see it for herself. Too bad she hadn't gotten to see the hedgehogs start on their destructive mission like she had wanted to. After all, it had been the exact point where the end for humanity began. Oh well…hearing the entire situation reported to her by Falc had been plenty good enough.

She felt only one true regret out of this entire situation: Nail. A horrible shame she had to get Redrum to kill him, since the gray fox didn't see things her way. Canma would have loved to have him as her mate and start a family together, but she knew it'd be too dangerous to keep him close with those crazy ideas about preserving humanity in his head. Oh well. Canma knew she could surely find someone else to replace him.

In any case, all she had left to do for now was meet up with Falc in the sewers, and from there they'd slip out of the city. She descended wherever she could towards the sewer levels, but the Robotropolis Core's confusing layout slowed her down a lot. Not to mention robotic sentries that occasionally got in her way, although they weren't too difficult to deal with. With the fat man dead, they seemed confused and disoriented.

Canma guessed she was about to the ground floor, when a familiar face stepped around the corner in front of her. It was…Nail! Looked like Redrum hadn't killed him after all, but he took care of Redrum instead. However, the fox seemed just as surprised seeing her as she did, but he quickly recovered and started to draw out a handgun. Even though he limped on one leg and cradled an arm, Canma understood guns were just as effective at killing no matter how wounded their users were. The vixen knew she'd be taking a big risk fighting him, so she turned and ran the other way, as Nail took aim. "Canma! Stop or I'll shoot!"

Two gunshots rang out, but Canma ducked safely around a corner even before he'd fired. The bullets harmlessly hit a metal wall off to the side of the hall. She let loose a sigh of relief. Nail was a crack shot, and she believed for sure one of those bullets would take her down. But now, with Nail's leg banged up like that, he sure wouldn't be keeping up with her, much less fighting her. And to make things even better, up ahead she saw a door labeled "Sewer Facilities." It even hung partially open, which meant Falc had to have come this way already.

However, more bullets pinged off of the walls and the metal door, leaving sparks everywhere. Nail just wasn't giving up. However, that didn't matter now. Canma slammed the door closed behind her. There didn't seem to be any way to lock it though… Glancing up, she saw exposed pipes on the ceiling. With a few slashes from her sword, she had a nice baseball bat-sized piece, and stuck it through the door handle leading into the room. Nail sure wouldn't be getting in here now, since the pipe had the handle wedged shut. The door shook as Nail tried futilely to open it.

Canma just shook her head and laughed, before she started down into the sewer. Satisfied, she continued on her journey to the escape point. It couldn't be soon enough, considering the cut pipe started spilling a vile-smelling smoke all over the place. She retched at the smell. These damn humans and their chemicals and pollutants…

But as she turned the first corner, a fist smashed right into her forehead. The vixen screamed as she flew backwards, splashing into the horrible sewer water, which quickly covered her from head to toe. Some of it seeped into her mouth, and the vixen retched, rearing back up and coughing, as she put a hand to the searing wound on her head. As she collected herself, Canma looked up. Knuckles stood there, holding Falc unconscious over her back, and he looked absolutely furious to boot. "Looks like this son of a bitch was telling the truth." The echidna pointed at the raccoon on his back. "So he was on your side the entire time, huh? Backstabbing bastard. At least we've caught him, and now I'm taking you in."

Canma inched backwards in the sewer water, trying to scoot away from Knuckles. She didn't know how she was going to get out of this one. However, a thought struck her. Perhaps she could convince Knuckles they were a lesser evil and then he'd leave them alone… She gave her voice a pleading tone. "But Sonic…Metal Sonic… Shouldn't you be trying to stop them?"

"Tails is working on that," Knuckles smirked. "Funny that one good thing came out of that program you made. Thanks to you, they're not attacking furries anymore, and that means Tails won't need any help from me." Canma let out a long sigh. So much for that plan. In the background, Nail continued to beat on the nearby door way. Knuckles cocked his head towards it. The vixen took advantage of the opportunity to draw her sword, but Knuckles was faster. He reached out and grabbed her arm before she could fully pull out the blade. The echidna smirked again. "I don't think so."

And then he yanked hard, throwing her by the hand headfirst into a wall of pipes. She'd never felt such a pain before… That wound from getting hit in the head by Knuckles the first time multiplied the pain from the second impact many times. She just sat there rolling around in the sewer water, howling in agony. Knuckles walked towards the door, before he pulled out the pipe and threw the handle down. Nail stood there with his gun drawn, and then looked in bewilderment as he saw the echidna standing there. "Knuckles? How did you—"

"Coon boy here told me where he was meeting psycho purple ninja vixen. Turns out he's a-"

Nail raised up a hand to stop him. "I already know. Redrum's a traitor too."

At the mention of Redrum being on Canma's side, Knuckles' eyes widened again. "Damn! Who on this mission doesn't have a hidden agenda?"

"Looks like it's just you, me, and Tails. Anyway, I've already taken care of Redrum. He's not dead, but he isn't gonna be going anywhere for a while, believe me."

Canma closed her eyes and sighed. She couldn't think of a way for Tails to stop her plan now, since his reprogrammer should have been destroyed. But the success of her human genocide plan wouldn't do her a lot of good if she ended up getting thrown into jai. However, she noticed the two seemed to be talking it up a bit, and not paying much attention to her. She had a can of sleeping gas in her belt… If she could just reach it… Her hand slowly moved down towards the utility belt.

_Click._ Canma looked up, and stared down the barrel of Nail's handgun. "Nuh-uh sweetheart. I don't think so." Canma growled at Nail, and she couldn't believe she'd been caught by these two. They'd been so easy to fool before…why not now? "Stand up with your hands above your head and face the wall, understand?"

Canma complied. However, the vixen realized she was standing right next to the pipe she'd cut open just a few moments ago. The same noxious-smelling gas she'd detected before kept pumping out of it at a rapid rate. While right now it was shooting down the hall past them, she might could reach up and bend it towards her two adversaries. Canma grinned, as she realized Nail's order to raise her arms up put her hands right next to the pipe.

In an instant, she jumped up, and used her body weight to pull it down. It was sturdy, but it clearly wasn't designed to hold her weight. Then, she jerked it to the side, aiming it at Nail and Knuckles. They screamed and coughed as the gas flew all around them, closing their eyes as the chemical stung their eyes. Knuckles dropped Falc to the floor in the struggle. Canma reached out to grab him…but then Nail managed to get some shots off, driving her away, back towards the door leading into the sewers.

"Freeze!" Nail screamed as he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision to fire again. Meanwhile, Knuckles also stepped out next to him, going into a fighting stance. That put the two of them between Canma and Falc. How would she save her brother now? She'd never be able to take them both on… As she continued to debate what to do, Knuckles suddenly rushed forwards, which made the decision for her. Canma whirled around, picked up the cut pipe off of the floor, and slammed the door back closed behind her. After stuffing the pipe through the handle, this time on the hallway side of the door, she took off at a run. With Knuckles' strength, that door wasn't going to stay closed for long.

While she'd certainly be able to hide before then, tears fell from her eyes as she ran. Falc wouldn't be there to enjoy their victory. He'd just be sitting in a jail cell in a military prison somewhere, rotting away… Canma didn't know how she was going to deal with this. Even though they didn't see eye to eye on how humans and their technology should be treated, Canma realized she loved him as a brother when they'd worked together on this mission.

Truth to be told, Canma had been afraid he'd betray her, but he'd been loyal to his word and carried out the mission perfectly. That made the loss of him all the harder… This had gone from the best day of her life to one of the worst. It made her feel like she was standing in the village again that day, as the humans took everything she knew away from her.

Once again, it was their fault this was happening, as they were turning furry against furry. She screamed out her rage at them as she ran. However, vengeance would be swift. In just a few days time, maybe less, the humans would be cleansed from this world. And then she could save her brother, wherever they were taking her. It would be all right in the end. She just have to make an alteration to her plan and fight onward a little more. This wouldn't be so hard; she'd been through far worse…

* * *

Sonic practically felt like crying as he tore through dozens of human soldiers by the minute, but he couldn't even do that. While just about every city he'd been forced to destroy had made him wish he could just kill himself to stop the madness, this incident felt particularly worse. He'd almost been free there…almost… But something seemed to have gone wrong with Tails' reprogrammer, based on what he'd heard the two of them talking about as he'd flown away.

He really doubted Tails would have intentionally programmed him to kill every human he laid eyes on, so some error must have slipped into his work… But how? Sonic knew Tails as the best guy around with computers, so how'd such a huge mistake creep into his program? It made no sense.

Those thoughts did little to distract him though from what he was doing now, in tandem with his metallic "brother" Metal Sonic. He watched painfully, just as he'd been forced to watch everything else he was doing as a robot, as he stabbed his clawed arm right through another human soldier and out the other side. The human howled in misery, before the screams quickly died away and he fell limp. The program made Sonic calmly toss aside the body, before he advanced upon his next victim.

Each time he killed another person, or destroyed another building, it was like a knife to the heart. Even though Sonic really wasn't the one willing the destruction, he couldn't help but wonder how he was going to live with himself once he managed to get control again. It was nobody's fault but his own that he was in this situation now, considering he hadn't been able to escape capture from Robotnik in that fateful encounter. Thus, he was at least indirectly responsible for everything that was happening now.

"Die you traitor!" Sonic whirled around to face a human brandishing a large machine gun. The man opened fire, but as usual, Sonic's robotic body brushed them aside as if they were just raindrops. He calmly strode right through the bullets, before grabbing the man's head and twisting it around, so his neck snapped. The lifeless body collapsed to the ground, as the machine gun's clatter finally got cut off.

_I am a traitor… If only he'd managed to kill me then this would all be over… I used to think the phrase "there are things worse than death" was just a joke, but now I see that it's totally true._

At least that was the last human in the zone, or so his computer said, which left only furries behind. He hadn't harmed a hair on their heads, for whatever reason. Maybe Canma had something to do with the foul up in Tails' program? Although how had she managed that? She clearly didn't use any human technology, since she hated the humans so dearly. So, how would she manage to mess with the program?

But then Sonic's head snapped to the left, as he detected a new group of humans approaching nearby. They were several miles out, so the camera eyes zoomed in and looked through the fog and clouds to see what the force consisted of. What Sonic saw caused him to jolt with fear. It was the Presidential shuttle! The hedgehog could recognize the craft anywhere, considering it had a very unique design. The craft almost resembled a graceful white bird, with how the metal curved into a smooth, narrow body and thin wings.

What was the President doing here?! Naturally, several ships escorted the craft, but it wouldn't make a bit of difference with Sonic's robotic body. The President was a human, and thus his new mind control program labeled him as worthy of death. Sonic, powerless to stop his own body, shot straight forwards to the craft, closing the distance in a time that seemed far too short. Metal Sonic pulled up alongside him, the two hurtling right at the front of the ship.

With just a few swings, they cut right through the metal and into the bridge at the front of the ship. Everybody moved away from the controls and crowded in front of the President and Sera, who were standing at the back of the room. The President looked like he was about to faint, right there, but he somehow remained conscious and standing. The man turned to his daughter. "I told you this was a bad idea Sera!"

"But you said that Tails was going to free Sonic! Not make him kill everyone! I wanted to see him when he came to again!" She sounded surprisingly irritated for someone so close to death. In any case, she turned away from her father and attempted to reason with the two metallic hedgehogs. Like that would do any good…Sonic grimly thought. "Come on Sonic! I know you're in there! Come out and stop killing people! Please! I'm begging you! I know you can fight it!"

For a long moment, Sonic just sat there, and so did Metal. The program controlling them scanned Sara, reading her bio signs and such. She was part furry, due to her cat ears and her cat tail, but she was also part human. The program Sonic had been running on didn't seem to know what to do with a hybrid. It strictly forbid the killing of furries, but it also strictly forbid not killing humans.

_So what's it going to do with someone like her, who's a mix of both? What's going to be the final verdict? _

Instantly, Sonic stood right in front of Sera, before he plunged his claw straight into Sera's side, before Metal rushed up and joined in on the other side. Sera screamed so loud that her cries actually overloaded Sonic's electronic ears for a moment, before she finally fell limp and crashed to the floor, dead. That scream chilled Sonic to the bone. For a moment, his brain even refused to register what he just saw happen right in front of his eyes.

_No…no no no! I didn't do that! I didn't! I didn't! _

While Sonic didn't particularly like Sera, he absolutely hated seeing any harm come to her. But this…this was just too much. He couldn't believe that he'd actually killed Sera by his own hand. It was just….an impossible event. But here he was, seeing it happening with a front row seat. Sonic attempted to will himself to pull his arm out of Sera's body, even though he knew it was pointless with the program in full control.

But then, Sonic's hand immediately pulled from Sera's body. The hedgehog stopped. Had that arm just moved at his command? He told it to pull out… Sonic tried it again. He willed his arm to move to the left with his mind, and the arm complied. Then he tried jumping up, and his body jumped. He willed his head to turn, and it was so. He was back in command. Sonic had almost forgotten what it felt like to be in control of his own body, and how much he took it for granted.

But before he could dwell on it more, he sensed the program controlling his body freaking out. It apparently decided previously that striking the human portion of the body was okay, but now it was having second thoughts since killing the human part had also killed the furry part. That caused a direct contradiction in the program's rules, and the program was shorting out since it had violated one of its own directives. Finally, it just quit and deactivated. Sonic felt himself in total control. If his robotic face would have allowed it, he'd have smiled right there.

But the moment of happiness was blown in an instant, as he looked down towards the dead Sera. "Sera!" he shouted in a robotic voice, and then he stopped for a moment. It felt so surprising to Sonic that what he wanted to say had been said by his own mouth, since he'd been forced to stay silent for so long. Regardless, he reached down and picked her up. "No…Sera… Why'd you have to die right after I came back? Why?"

The humans standing in the room just stared on in astonishment. It looked like they were just as surprised as Sonic that he'd suddenly regained control. However, eventually, the President approached first. A soldier moved to stand in his way, but the President just pushed him aside, coming closer. "Sonic… Are you really back?"

The hedgehog just stared at him…unable to say anything. How could he? He murdered the President's daughter right in front of everybody, with his own hands. But eventually, he found the will to speak. "Y-yes…" Once he found his voice, he couldn't stop talking. "Mr. President, I'm so sorry. I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't stop myself, that program—"

He suddenly cut off. The Prez seemed unable to say anything himself. The situation felt most confusing to the both of them. Regardless, the President spoke as slowly and evenly as he could. "I understand Sonic… It wasn't your fault…it was the program—"

The hedgehog interrupted. "No…it was mine. I let Robotnik take control of me and Metal Soni—" And then he cut off. In all of the confusion he'd totally forgotten about Metal. The President seemed to as well. The two of them turned to look nearby, where Metal stood. He just stood there…staring back. Metal got all of Sonic's life data, which meant he should be operating according to his personality.

That should have meant they didn't have anything to worry about, but Sonic felt uneasy… He decided to try talking. "Metal? How do you feel?"

Metal again just stood there quietly, not saying anything. Long, awkward seconds passed. But finally, the robot spoke. "It seems you finally got your wish, Sonic," he said flatly.

Sonic blinked in the way robots did: his green glowing eyes winked for a moment. "What are you talking about?"

"I have your memories with your life data. Allow me to play one that you have recorded in your mind…" And then there was a clicking noise, as if Metal was reading a CD or something and about to play an audio track. A light beam shot forth from Metal's eyes, and a hologram took shape in the middle of the floor. It showed Sonic and Tails eating breakfast at their hideout, several weeks ago, before they decided to go on the vacation that started this whole mess.

"_I heard you turning around in bed last night, and mumbling. I thought I heard you say 'Metal' too."_

"_Eh...it's nothing Tails."_

"_No it isn't Sonic," Tails said, a little firmer. "I know you're thinking about Metal again."_

_Sonic let out a sigh, and whirled around to face Tails. "All right, I admit it."_

_Tails let out a sigh himself, and rolled his eyes. "Are you ever gonna stop thinking about him? He's just a robot, and not really a person."_

"_I think different Tails. I think he could have been a great help since he went good."_

"_Well I just think that's nuts Sonic. I mean, yeah, he saved the President and that owl in the end when I brought out your personality. But what if Robotnik came up with a way to get Metal's programming going back to the way it was? He's a machine, and machines don't really have feelings. They just do what they're told to do, and they don't care who gets hurt."_

_Sonic let out a 'hmph', and returned to cooking his meal. Sonic spoke to Tails as he started cooking his bacon. "You'll never understand Tails. You just won't. I know there's something more to Metal than what meets the eye…"_

The recording stopped there, and Metal switched off his projector. "Now do you see what I mean?" Metal said, still in that flat, metallic voice of his.

"Yes…" Sonic said. While he felt glad they now had a metal on their side, he couldn't have wished for darker circumstances under which it could happen. If only it had been at a more peaceful, less difficult time…

"However," Metal said, his tone suddenly changing to harshness and hatred. "You have done evil." Sonic's eyes widened. What did he mean? What was he talking about? When had he done any kind of evil? Regardless, Metal Sonic continued. "Look at everything you have done while you were under mind control. It's your fault. You believe it yourself, and so do I, since we are linked by your life data. It's your fault all those soldiers and people died. You know what we think. All evil must be eradicated from this world, and that includes you because of the handiwork you have done."

The robotic hedgehog stepped forward towards his counterpart, moving very slowly and deliberately. Sonic took a step back, feeling nervous. There must have been some kind of bug when Metal Sonic's mind control deactivated. He appeared to be taking everything Sonic believed to an extreme, and if this kept up, that would be very bad indeed. Metal Sonic continued with his speech. "After I am done with you, I will destroy everyone on this planet who has done any evil, and then I will destroy myself. We will all be brought to justice." Metal Sonic pointed a metallic finger right at his counterpart. "Sonic, for the good of Planet Freedom, you must die!"

And then he engaged his thrusters, barreling straight at Sonic.


	13. Metal to Metal

**Chapter 13: Metal to Metal**

**September 10th, 2316 – 10:20 PM – Robotropolis, Robotnik Empire**

Metal crashed into Sonic with such force that every bolt in his body seemed to rattle from the impact. The collision sent them both tumbling out through the hole they'd just torn in the President's ship, back out into open air…sort of. Since the army chose to distance itself from Robotropolis, they all concentrated themselves in a ring around the city, and that's where the two of them were right now. Gunships practically filled the air all around them. Sonic knew that if they fought here, many more troops would die. He had to lure Metal back to Robotropolis.

Fortunately, one strong knee kick sent Metal tumbling backwards, forcing the two of them apart. The hedgehog momentarily paused, marveling at how much faster his movements and thoughts seemed to be in a metal form. But it wasn't like it gave him an advantage. Sonic knew Metal had the same upgrades. Now wasn't the time to get distracted. Sonic pulled a 180, engaged his thruster, and rocketed back towards the city.

But on the way back, Metal caught up to Sonic, delivering a solid spin attack right into his "brother's" back. Sonic instantly cut off his thruster on impact, as he felt himself tumbling through the air. But Metal didn't stop there. He grabbed Sonic by the arms, and accelerated straight downwards, holding Sonic in front of him. The hedgehog turned and looked to see what they were headed towards.

He would have gasped if he'd been capable. Metal had Sonic's body aimed directly for the sharp tip of an antennae tower on top of one of Robotropolis' many skyscrapers. If Sonic got impaled on that thing, this fight would be over right now, and Metal could freely kill him before taking on the rest of the planet. The hedgehog engaged his thruster, but Metal had gravity on his side, plus the force of his own engine.

And then Sonic found himself scraping alongside the spindly metal tower, with sparks flying everywhere. Then they went right through the skyscraper's roof with a smash, and the floor after that. The two robots instantly climbed to their feet and stared each other down. Now that they had a moment to pause, Sonic marveled that he couldn't feel any pain from anything that had happened to him so far. He felt like he was controlling a character in a video game rather than actually doing any of this. But on the other hand, Sonic didn't like the numbness he felt. No feeling of touch, no sense of smell, no taste in his mouth…just hardwired hearing and vision.

A groaning sounded above. The robots looked up just in time to watch the giant antennae fall down, right through the roof. The small hole they'd made in the ceiling became a huge gash in the roof, before it split a few more floors down below in half. But neither Sonic nor Metal Sonic even flinched during all of this, as they stared at each other across the new chasm.

Metal Sonic took the first move, as he "teleported" behind Sonic. However, unlike when he was flesh, Sonic found it considerably easier to keep up with where Metal moved. In fact, his computer brain processed the movement so fast he actually saw Metal running to the new location, rather than disappearing and instantly reappearing. Because of that, Sonic was ready with a nice uppercut.

But Metal Sonic possessed the same processing speed, easily clenching the arm in his own metal claws before it hit him. doppelganger didn't hesitate, flinging his own arm overhead, dragging Sonic right along with it. Sonic did a nice faceplant into the concrete directly behind Metal, but all it seemed to do to him was distort his vision a bit, before the image refocused again. Metal yanked his own arm in the other direction and off the floor, in order to fling Sonic in another direction, but Sonic wasn't going to let him do that. The hedgehog ignited his own booster in the middle of the swing, sending both of them flying out of the building and into open air.

As they exited the building, Metal released his grip. While Sonic felt thankful for that, he examined his arm. The maneuver he just pulled seemed to have put some stress on it. Sonic could visibly see the lower arm starting to come out of its socket. It wasn't much, but the limb would only pull out more and more as the battle wore on. And with one less arm, he'd be severely outmatched trying to battle Metal.

As Sonic looked up, he jumped back in surprise. Metal popped up right in front of Sonic while he was busy examining the arm. Sonic raised his arm to block, but then his double just grabbed it with both arms, and planted one foot against Sonic's chest. Using his foot as leverage, Metal yanked hard, attempting to yank the damaged arm out. The hedgehog could feel the wires inside snapping, as warning boxes flashed across his visor.

While initially caught by surprise, Sonic jumped back into action, engaging his thruster. The two hedgehogs slammed together, rocketing across the sky. In the middle of the confusion, Sonic brought up his other clawed hand and stabbed it towards Metal's eyes. Glass and metal exploded away from the robot's face, as one of his red irises winked out.

Finally, the two managed to separate, staring each other down once more. While Sonic had gotten in a good blow, he knew he'd paid dearly for it. No way would he be using his damaged arm any longer. All the wires got torn to pieces in that struggle, leaving the limb limp and unusable.

Even worse, Sonic didn't even want to fight this battle. He wanted to be allies with Metal…but fate just seemed destined to prevent that from happening. This was ending up just like the fight against the first Metal Sonic. Sonic turned to his brother, and attempted to reason to him. While he figured it wouldn't work, it was at least worth a try. "Metal…I don't know what's gone wrong with your program, but there's no need for us to fight!"

True to his cold, calculating, robotic nature, Metal responded simply and firmly. "Every being on this planet has evil in them. They must all be purged. That is my duty, and it should be yours as well if you are the hero you claim to be."

Sonic was about to sigh…but then he realized he couldn't. Regardless, due to the linking of their minds because of their shared life data, he knew what Metal was thinking that convinced him to take these actions. Metal believed that everyone, no matter how honest, no matter how pure, had done some sort of evil in their lives. It could be as big as mass genocide, or it could be as small as stealing a stick of gum. Nobody ever lived a perfect life, because doing so was virtually impossible, but Metal's thoughts did not take this into account.

Since reasoning definitely went out the window, Sonic knew he needed a different approach to ending Metal's rampage. Metal needed to be disabled in some kind of way, so that he'd live but would no longer be a danger to anyone. But how? After Metal teleported in, and Sonic eluded a flying kick, he also wondered how he was going to get an idea while Metal tried so hard to kill him.

"Sonic!" That voice sounded familiar… Both Metal and Sonic turned to see Tails flying towards them. Was that fox nuts? Sonic already knew just how badly beaten Tails got whenever he tried to stop them before. But before he could call out to make him leave, the fox shouted something. "Go to the war factory inside Robotropolis! I saw it on the map Redrum had! It's got smelting pits! Get him into one! It's your best chance to destroy Metal!"

Sonic was about to scream at Tails for shouting his plan out in front of Metal…but he stopped. Even if Tails whispered that idea to him, Metal would find out about it shortly thereafter as well, due to their connected minds. So…he supposed the fox figured that himself, hence why Tails hadn't wasted time about trying to keep it a secret from Metal.

Sonic turned to Metal once again, and Metal did the same. The two stared each other down. This time, Metal spoke first. "That idea sounds good. It will end the fight faster, and then I will be able to start cleansing this planet sooner." True to his robot self, Metal calculated this conclusion impassively, like he was solving a math problem. While it was a big risk (Sonic could end up in the molten metal in a smelting pit too), the lava flow had stopped the first Metal Sonic rather quickly… "Don't think it will be that easy." His robotic twin was reading his thoughts again. "I won't be defeated like my predecessor was. I have improvements."

While this plan carried the danger of Metal dying, it would definitely be the fastest way out of this mess. Melting off a part of Metal sure would stop him really quick, and they could always fix him later. And that could only be a good thing for everyone else on the planet. Sonic nodded his agreement to the challenge. As one, the two of them rocketed towards Robotropolis. They flew down the corridors straight to the war factory without getting lost, thanks to the map of Robotropolis Robotnik uploaded to both of them.

And then they were there. With how big an army Robotnik maintained, the war factory had to be huge to keep up with the demands of his forces. And so it was… The massive room stood twenty stories high, and you could also fit in at least several hundred football fields in here. Tons upon tons of machinery filled the room. Conveyor belts shuttled along all sorts of things, from laser rifles to huge armor hulls for gunships. Other machines stamped, pounded, cut, treated, or whatever else to all the things on the belts. And at various locations around the room, smelting pits glowed bright yellow, their light reflecting off of all the metal and giving the room a glistening appearance.

Simultaneously, the two robots turned to look at each other. This was it. The battleground for their final fight. Both of them knew that one of them wouldn't be walking out of here intact. Sonic gave a small nod to Metal, indicating he was ready. Metal nodded in return, and it was on.

The two of them rocketed into the center of the room. After they got there, Metal launched the first attack. He went for a roundhouse kick, slamming Sonic backwards and straight onto a conveyor belt. Metal didn't let up, holding Sonic down onto the ground.

Just a little further up the track, a huge guillotine-like blade repeatedly slammed down onto the belt, slashing panels of metal in half. The time it took for the blade to come down seemed to be less than a second, and it halved the giant pieces of metal as if they were just made of soft cake. Sonic had to get up…or he'd be in pieces.

Sonic ignited his booster engine again…but this time Metal engaged his own engine, forcing him back down. Meanwhile, the fire from the hedgehog's engine melted a hole into the metallic belt. Now Sonic attempted to push Metal off with his arm, but since Sonic already had one weakened arm he was at a definite disadvantage. Even when he pushed as hard as he could with his own arm, Metal just punched Sonic in the face over and over again. He couldn't win with his arm. Sonic turned around, and saw they were now inches from the crushing blade.

Sonic brought forth his good arm in one last attempt to push Metal off…but the blade slammed down, slicing through the arm as if it weren't even there. Sonic didn't have the use of either of his arms now. Not to say that Metal got away unscathed either. As they moved under the cutting machine, it slammed down again, this time chopping right through both of Metal's legs. Sparks spat out from the freshly cut appendages, but they quickly died away.

While both of them got damaged, Sonic definitely felt he got the raw end of the deal here. It wasn't like they needed their legs when they could just fly and loop around all over the place. Regardless, he couldn't complain. He had to carry on.

With one more ignition from his rocket engine, the two flew off the conveyor belt. Sonic noticed Metal seemed easier to push away, now that he was lighter and smaller from the lost legs. After smashing through a gridwork of steel beams holding up a conveyor belt, they found themselves standing in a storage area for finished robotic soldiers. These robots hadn't been turned on yet, and stood in neat, orderly rows. At least until Sonic and Metal went flying through them. The ones they knocked down hit the other soldiers, causing a domino effect.

Sonic momentarily lost track of Metal in the jumble of robots that fell all over the place, but then he heard the sound of metal squealing on metal. Turning around, he saw his double holding a load of soldiers in his arms. A second later, he threw all the bots right at Sonic. The air practically filled with them, even more so as Metal started tossing them everywhere non-stop. Sonic went on the defensive, dodging left and right, again and again to avoid the huge projectiles. But without his arms, he had a hard time keeping his balance, and veered off a little too far in one direction. Metal saw his chance, and aimed a bot ahead of Sonic's flight path.

It hit him dead on, right in the face. Sonic's visual sensors briefly sent back static for a moment. He heard the sound of breaking glass and thought it might be one of his eyes being destroyed…but then the sensors came back online. He found himself at the rear end of a cockpit in some kind of vehicle…with a big hole in the windshield. Looked like Metal's throw knocked him straight inside one of Robotnik's war vehicles, and this one looked like some kind of cargo plane. He must have been thrown far then. When he first saw the room, Sonic noticed the just-finished aircraft were stored a ways away from the just-finished robots…

Metal came flying in after him, looking kind of like a hyperactive baseball without his legs. While his double flew right at him, Sonic wasn't gonna give him a chance to keep up his assault. The hedgehog brought up both his legs, and kicked forward. Since Metal was so light now, that knocked him backwards…right into the control panel of the cargo plane. The controls shorted out, giving Metal an electrocution before shorting out, which left the robot stunned.

Sonic saw his chance, and jumped up. After getting over next to his adversary, he repeatedly kicked Metal in the head over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Sonic must have kicked his double's head about fifty times in five seconds there. It looked very lumpy now, like it had just been in a hailstorm. Felt quite satisfying, actually, with how much Sonic had been on the defensive before.

But then Metal recovered and engaged his thruster. That sent the two of them blasting right through the roof of the cargo plane…and smashing down onto the hard concrete floor nearby. A little crater got left behind where they landed. After that, Metal got up, pinned Sonic to the floor, and started raking his claw across Sonic's face about as fast as Sonic kicked his head before. Now the hedgehog's face looked like it had been through a rock crusher, with how it had gouges and cuts all over the place.

But before Metal could continue…a loud horn blasted. The two of them turned around and looked up. A huge delivery truck headed straight for them, this one with no cab for a driver. Looked like the vehicle was automated. But, even though it sent out an automated warning horn, it didn't slow down. Sonic allowed himself to lie flat, and then Metal got smashed right on the front radiator of the engine. Metal got swatted away like a fly.

The sound of screeching brakes made Sonic whirl around. The truck that hit Metal stopped…and then was hurled to the side. Metal flew over towards Sonic once more, but this time he seemed a bit slower. Sonic was so caught up in the fight before he too didn't notice his systems had been damaged so severely. Many of them were labeled as being in orange or red condition by the warning signs on his visors. This fight was about to end for one of them.

In any case, as Metal kept rushing forward, Sonic dropped backwards, letting his body go horizontal. Then, as his double screamed overhead, Sonic brought his legs up, kicking Metal in the back and sending him flying even further. After he righted himself, Sonic saw he'd sent his opponent flying straight towards a large support beam. When Metal hit it Sonic heard a loud groaning noise overhead. He looked up, and there was a huge vat being held by that support beam and two others. Considering it appeared to be heavily reinforced and very thick, he'd guess there was something really corrosive in there.

And then some liquid, molten steel splashed out of the sides. Where the glowing yellow-white liquid landed, it melted the floor and other support beams. With even less support now, the vat began to groan a lot more. If that thing tipped over…the contents of that container were going to fall right on top of Metal.

A chill of fear would have run down Sonic's spine if that were possible. He only wanted to stop Metal from fighting, not get destroyed entirely! Sonic ignited his engines…but they weren't quite as sharp as before. He found it harder to ignite the flame and maintain a steady acceleration.

_Come on…come on…_

Metal too appeared to be having trouble getting going. Sonic didn't see a glowing red iris in his eyes anymore. It looked like the impact with the steel beam destroyed his other eye. He fumbled around blindly, trying to see what was going on.

Sonic poured on the speed…but then…a rocket flashed past him.

It hit another support beam…and that was it for the molten steel vat's balance. The thing toppled over, spilling its contents almost directly on top of Metal. One second he was fumbling about there…the next he'd disappeared beneath a sea of molten steel. Sonic just stood there in shock. It was so fast he didn't really have time to see what happened. For a second, the glowing yellow-white liquid just sat there…but then there was a splash. Sonic saw a shape that looked vaguely like Metal underneath the molten goo. It thrashed desperately this way and that, throwing more globs of the glowing liquid everywhere…but then it settled back down.

Metal was dead. Again. But then, Sonic heard some talking behind him. It sounded very rapid and excited. And then Sonic realized he had been so caught up in the moment, he hadn't seen what had fired that rocket yet. The hedgehog turned around to see Tails there…speaking excitedly into a radio. Sonic didn't hear any words, although at the fox's feet was a smoking rocket launcher, apparently picked up from one of the destroyed robot soldiers from before.

While before Tails had a huge grin on his face, upon seeing Sonic looking at him, the little fox seemed ashamed of himself. He'd been so caught up in the moment of finally getting rid of Metal that he hadn't realized Sonic still wanted Metal to live. He stopped talking into the radio and let it fall at his side. No words were exchanged after that. The two just stared at each other, not really sure what to say. The radio slipped out of the fox's hands, clattering on the floor.

_This feels just like the end of the first fight against Metal. _

That memory he'd been having ever since the end of the first Metal Sonic incident came flying right back at him.

"_Sonic!" Tails cried out. "What are you doing? Stop!" _

_Sonic slid down a hill towards a lava pit, where the remains of Metal Sonic sat at the edge of the molten rock. He had fallen there after a power failure, after saving the President and his owl friend. Sonic brought himself to a halt almost within arms reach of the robot. _"_Grab my hand!" he shouted, as he extended his arm. _

_However, someone grabbed him from behind and started pulling him back. _"_Don't do it Sonic!" Knuckles shouted. He was the one trying to drag him away. _

_Metal slowly crawled up towards Sonic, due to his legs being ripped off. However, as soon as he could reach Sonic's hand, he slapped it aside. Sonic gasped in surprise. _"_There is only one Sonic," Metal simply said. The molten lava began to melt his body._

"_No!" Sonic screamed, struggling harder to reach for Metal. _

"_No Sonic! He'll drag you under with him!" Knuckles continued to keep pulling Sonic back. Despite his efforts, it was too late. The lava began to cover up Metal's body, melting it in the process. His burning red eyes winked out as it too slipped below the surface. Metal Sonic was gone... _

Sonic hated having to repeat this all over again. He wanted Metal to live, and become a good guy. And once again, the opportunity had just slipped out of his fingers, and he appeared to be one of the few people upset about this. On Tails' dropped radio, he could hear the sound of cheering all around, from various soldiers. But Sonic…he felt like this was the worst day of his life.


End file.
